On Monday, the Department of Statistics Malaysia shared that during the month of November last year, the country's manufacturing sales value unexpectedly dropped by 8.1% as compared to November of 2008 and a revised fall of 3.7% recorded for October 2009.

On a monthly basis, the manufacturing sales have slipped by 6.2% for the month.

For the January to November period for 2009, manufacturing sales dropped by a whopping 21.2%, compared to the same period for the previous year.

"Despite the contraction in exports, we think that the outlook for consumption and investment has improved. We are likely to see gross domestic product growth pick up in the first half of 2010, supported by the fiscal stimulus", said Rahul Bajoria, an economist at Barclays Capital in Singapore.

All was, however, not bleak as the number of employees working in the manufacturing sector was 942,013 in November, which is a rise of 3.323 workers or 0.3% as compared to October 2009. Also, wages and salaries paid also hiked by 0.3% or MYR 6.8 Million, to MYR 2.02 Billion.