Number of jobs up 2.4% in Q2 2023

The number of jobs increased by 2.4% in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023 to 8.83 million compared to 8.62 million in Q2 2022, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia.

Chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin said an upward trend in the number of filled jobs was observed with an increase of 2.5% to 8.64 million jobs in Q2 2023 compared to 8.42 million jobs in Q2 2022.

However, he said the number of job vacancies experienced negative growth and declined 0.9% with 189,600 vacancies compared to 191,300 during Q2 2022.

"During this period, the rates of filled jobs and job vacancies were at 97.9% and 2.1% respectively, reflecting a balanced and competitive labour market," he said in a statement on employment statistics for the second quarter of 2023.

On the filled jobs scenario during Q2 2023, he said the mining and quarrying sector led the way with the highest growth rate of 3.6%, followed by manufacturing at 3.1% and agriculture at 3.0%.

On job distribution by economic activity, the services sector was the largest contributor of filled jobs, accounting for 4.55 million jobs or 52.7% of all filled jobs, while the manufacturing sector recorded 2.32 million filled jobs (26.9%) and the construction sector, 1.24 million (14.3%).

Uzir said the total number of job vacancies in the economic sector in Q2 2023 decreased by 1,700 to 189,600  from 191,300 in Q2 2022.

"More than half of the job vacancies were in the manufacturing sector which had 108,000 vacancies, while agriculture ranked second with 30,700 job vacancies," he said.

On job creation in Q2 2023, Uzir said 31,900 new jobs were added to cater for the growing demand subsequent to the recovering economy, with 16,500 new jobs in the services sector.

"Overall labour demand in the economic sector in Q2 2023 continued to show a positive trend despite global recession risks, leading to an increase in job opportunities and reinforcing the strength of Malaysia's labour market," he said.

Jobs refers to total labour comprising filled jobs and vacancies, while filled jobs refers to paid employees, both full-time and part-time workers, excluding individual proprietors and business partners.

Vacancies refers to unfilled jobs which are ready to be filled, and new jobs means jobs created in an organisation which were not previously available.