24,000 jobs created in Q4 last year
KUALA LUMPUR: The private sector created 24,000 jobs in the fourth quarter of last year compared with 30,000 in the previous year’s corresponding period.
However, the number of positions offered increased by 61,000 to 8.54 million from 8.48 million a year earlier, said the Statistics Department in a statement yesterday.
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the number of filled positions increased by 70,000 to 8.35 million during the quarter from 8.28 million previously, for 97.7 per cent of total positions.
Meanwhile, vacancies shrank to 198,000 from 206,000 in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Jobs created in the fourth quarter of last year were largely in the semi-skilled category with 49.2 per cent, followed by skilled (45.2 per cent) and low-skilled (5.6 per cent).
Of the 8.54 million positions, 5.31 million (62.2 per cent) were for semi-skilled jobs, 2.08 million for skilled and 1.15 million for lowskilled positions.
The semi-skilled category held the largest share of filled positions at 62.4 per cent, representing 5.2 million positions, against 62.3 per cent a year earlier.
The services sector was the biggest contributor to jobs created at 49.8 per cent, followed by construction (23.9 per cent) and manufacturing (15.1 per cent).
Services was also the largest contributor in terms of positions at 51.8 per cent, but made up only 2.5 per cent of filled positions, followed by the manufacturing sector, which accounted for 26.3 per cent of positions and 25.5 per cent of filled positions.
Manufacturing sector recorded the largest share of vacancies at 57 per cent, followed by services (18.9 per cent), construction (10.8 per cent), agriculture (13.1 per cent), and mining and quarrying (0.1 per cent).