Middle-class Malaysians have unemployment concerns, survey finds

Almost half of middle-class Malaysians have concerns over unemployment while concerns over corruption have gone down drastically, a recent survey has found.

Two-thirds of Malaysians also believed that the country was heading in the right direction, the survey by Ipsos found.

The market research company’s survey in April found that 43% of Malaysians had concerns over unemployment, compared to the 35% average of the 28 countries surveyed.

A March survey found that 42% of Malaysians stated unemployment as a main concern.

Malaysia was the seventh highest to have this concern among 28 countries, behind Spain (60%), South Africa (58%), Italy (56%), South Korea (55%), Australia (48%) and Chile (46%).

Unsurprisingly, 85% of Malaysians in the April survey said their main concern was Covid-19, while 30% said that financial/political corruption was a concern.

While there was no data for Covid-19 issues in March, 60% of Malaysians had said that financial corruption was a main concern.

The survey also found that

two-thirds or 66% of Malaysians surveyed believed that the country was going in the right direction, an increase compared to 35% in March and 46% in February.

All together, a total of 19,505 adults aged 16-74 between March 20 and April 3 responded to the online survey.

Over 1,000 individuals participated on a country by country basis via the Ipsos Online Panel.

Malaysia was one of the countries considered to have lower levels of Internet penetration and the samples should not be considered nationally representative, and instead be considered to represent a more affluent, connected population.

The Star