Addressing the COVID-19 Shock: The Potential Job Creation in China by the RCEP.

In 2020, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) left around 81% of the global workforce, nearly 2.7 billion workers, affected. Employment in China was the first to be hit by COVID-19. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is expected to bring dynamism to China's employment market in an era of long COVID-19. This study aims to examine the number of sectoral jobs that the RCEP will create in China, with the number of skilled or unskilled labour employed in each sector. The exogenous shocks to the RCEP can be reflected in the number of jobs created through multipliers based on a social accounting matrix compiled from China's input-output tables in 2017, combined with the employment satellite accounts compiled. The results show that the RCEP is expected to create over 17 million potential jobs in China, with unskilled labour accounting for 10.44 million and skilled labour for 6.77 million. It is even expected that there will be job losses in the metalworking machinery sector. The contribution of this paper can serve as a reference for policies to protect vulnerable sectors, further open up trade markets and strengthen cooperation among RCEP members as important measures to address the employment impact of long COVID-19.

The Risk Factors for Undiagnosed and Known Hypertension among Malaysians.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of known hypertension has resulted from the progression of undiagnosed hypertension. This study is targeted to examine and compare the risk factors based on the estimated odds ratios of modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors on different outcome levels of hypertension. METHODS: A nationwide representative secondary data from the Fourth National Health of Morbidity Survey (NHMS IV) which consists of 24,632 non-institutionalised Malaysian population conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2011 has been used. Odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval has been estimated using multinomial logistic regression. RESULTS: Obese and overweight respondents exhibit increased likelihood of having undiagnosed and known hypertension. Physically inactive, ex-smokers and unclassified drinkers are found having higher likelihood to have known hypertension. However, current drinkers are found to have higher likelihood of having undiagnosed hypertension. Elderly, retirees, home makers and lower educated respondents are shown higher odds to have undiagnosed hypertension. Likewise, the likelihood of having known hypertension has been found to increase among the elderly and other Bumiputra. CONCLUSION: Through this research, significant predictors which consist of obese and overweight respondents, current drinkers, older respondents (above 65 years old) and primary educated respondents are having higher likelihood to have undiagnosed hypertension.