The Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) today stressed that the news that had gone viral on social media about 2019 illegal workers' statistics was fake.

“Everyone is urged to stop spreading it immediately,” DOSM said in a statement.

The fake news claimed that: “According to data released by the Statistics Malaysia in 2019, the total number of legal and illegal foreign workers in Malaysia has reached 6.7 million.

"Of these, only about 2.7 million are legal foreign workers, and the other four million are illegal foreign workers."

DOSM stressed that it had never released statistics on illegal foreign workers and warned the public to check and verify the news they received before sharing them.

The department said it had released its Labour Force Statistics (STB) preliminary data for 2019 on April 11, 2020, reporting that Malaysia's labour force recorded 15.6 million people in 2019 compared to 15.3 million in 2018.

According to the STB 2019 preliminary findings, the national labour force statistics comprise 13.3 million citizens and 2.3 million non-citizens.

DOSM said the labour force statistics will be published in detail on April 29.

The public can also obtain official statistics through the DOSM portal or the DOSM social media (@StatsMalaysia).

- Bernama