Over 100,000 new jobs in 2019 – almost half in service sector

PUTRAJAYA, 13 Feb 2020:

A total of 104,000 new jobs were created out of the total 8.7 million jobs the private sector in 2019, according to the Employment Statistics Fourth Quarter 2019.

Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin, in a statement today, said 49.2% of the jobs were in the service sector, followed by construction (21.4%) and manufacturing (18.4%).

“The rate of the jobs filled was 97.7%, while the vacancy rate was 2.3%, with the number of vacancies recorded at 198,000 (out of the total of 8.7 million jobs).”

He said the highest rate of vacancies was reported in the manufacturing sector at 55.3%, followed by services (18.8%), agriculture (14.3%), construction (11.5%) and mining and quarrying (0.1%).

For the fourth quarter of 2019, he said 51.6% of the jobs were in the service sector, followed by manufacturing (26.4 %), construction (15.4%) agriculture (5.6%) and mining and quarrying (1.0%).

Mohd Uzir said jobs in the skilled categories increased by 19,000 to 2.1 million (24.3%) from the fourth quarter of 2018, with 97.7% of the jobs filled and 2.3% vacancies, involving 48,000 jobs.

He said the semi-skilled category registered a rise of 96,000 jobs to 5.4 million jobs, which was 62.4% of the total jobs.

“The rate of filled jobs for this category was (semi-skilled) was 98%, while the vacancy rate was 2%.”

As for jobs in low-skilled category, he said it went up by 5,000 to 1.2 million (13.3%), with the rate of filled jobs at 96.4% and 3.6% in vacancy rate.

– Bernama