Job vacancies drop 12.7% in Q4 2017: Statistics Department

PETALING JAYA: Job vacancies registered a negative growth of 12.7% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2017 (Q4 2017) to 206,000, compared with 236,000 in the previous corresponding quarter, according to Department of Statistics (Dos).
The jobs created also declined by 8.5% to 30,000 in Q4 2017 from 33,000 in the same period a year ago, it said in its maiden quarterly employment statistics published today.
DoS said the data is based on the Quarterly Employment Survey encompassing major economic activities namely agriculture, mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction and services in the formal private establishments.
The principal statistics of employment presented in this report are positions, filled positions, vacancies and jobs created by economic activity and skill for the period of the first quarter of 2015 to the fourth quarter of 2017.
However, the department said the number of positions for paid employees in the private sector grew 1% year-on-year in Q4 2017 to 8.48 million from 8.39 million previously, mainly contributed by filled positions which recorded 8.27 million compared with 8.16 million in the preceding year.
During the period, it said most positions were in the semi-skilled category which comprised 62.1% or 5.27 million, while the positions of skilled workers accounted for 24.2% or 2.06 million.
Low-skilled category recorded a share of 13.7% or 1.16 million positions, it added.
Meanwhile, DoS said filled positions in the skilled category posted two million, with a contribution of 24.2%, while filled positions in the low-skilled category dropped to 1.1 million, which constituted 13.5%.
It also noted that a total of 25.3% or 521,000 vacancies in skilled category was registered during the same period, with vacancies in semi-skilled and low-skilled categories recorded shares of 53.8% and 20.9% respectively.
Jobs created for skilled category contributed 59% or 178,000 thousand during the same quarter, while jobs created in the semi-skilled category was 10,000 with a contribution of 33.5%, followed by low-skilled category which posted 23,000 or 7.5%.