Posted on 22 Jun 2009
The April sales amounted to RM35.9bil and was 1.6% lower from March on a seasonally unadjusted basis. March sales fell to a revised 25.6% to RM36.5bil from a year earlier.
According to the department, the decline was attributable to the drop in sales value of 79 industries (68.1%) out of 116 covered in the survey.
The five major industries where sales value decreased significantly were the manufacture of refined petroleum products (36.9%), computer and computer peripherals (47.8%), basic iron and steel products (51.7%), electronic valves and tubes as well as printed circuit boards (34.3%), and the manufacture of other basic industrial chemicals, except fertilisers and nitrogen compounds (38%).
Total employees engaged in the manufacturing sector in April was 944,058, down by 78,353 or 7.7% from a year earlier, the department said.
Month-on-month, the number of workers employed decreased by 10,368, or 1.1%, from 954,426 in March, it said.
The department said salaries and wages paid in April fell 9.4%, or RM191.2mil, year-on-year to RM1.84bil.
Productivity or average sales value per employee for the month under review dropped by 20.1% year-on-year to RM38,024, it said.
Productivity also declined 0.5% compared with the preceeding month, it added.
