KUCHING: A total of 166,000 job vacancies were recorded in the private sector during the first quarter of this year – 35,000 less than a year ago.
Nevertheless, the effect of movement control order (MCO) to contain the Covid-19 pandemic was not fully reflected in labour demand situation for the period under review since it was only implemented during the last two weeks of March.
According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), the rate of vacancies for this quarter fell below two percent to 1.9 percent after registering 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
The decline in job vacancies was due to cautious steps taken by the industry amid slower economic performance of the country, said DOSM chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.
The statistics were based on DOSM’s quarterly employment survey conducted on formal private sector establishments.
Mohd Uzir said job vacancies were predominantly in semi-skilled category with 52.3 percent while skilled category represented 25.7 percent.
Last Friday, DOSM released unemployment statistics for March this year whereby unemployed persons increased by 17.1 percent to 610,500.
The status of labour demand and supply for the quarter gave early signal of disequilibrium in the labour market.
For the first time, he said the rate of filled jobs reached 98.1 percent after consistently recording between 97.1 percent and 97.7 percent, translated into 8.4 million jobs in this quarter.
“Nonetheless, the increase of 51,000 filled jobs in this quarter was lower compared to the annual increases of the previous quarters last year which ranged from 83,000 to 128,000.
“Filled jobs in both skilled and semi-skilled categories recorded slight increases while low-skilled category declined.”
Looking at the breakdown of filled jobs by skill category, Mohd Uzir said 24.3 percent were in skilled category encompassing of managers, professionals and technicians and associate professionals.
“Filled jobs in semi-skilled category, on the other hand accounted for 62.6 percent comprising clerical support workers, service and sales workers, skilled agricultural workers, craft and related trades workers and plant and machine operators and assemblers.
“As for low-skilled category which is elementary workers made up of 13.1 percent.”
Mohd Uzir said overall, the number of jobs in the private sector which comprised filled jobs and job vacancies went up by 18,000 to 8.6 million in the first quarter of this year.
He said following the slower growth of filled jobs and decrease in job vacancies, the number of jobs during this quarter grew marginally as compared to the past four quarters last year.
