The private sector in Malaysia recorded an increase of 82,000 positions in the first quarter of the year compared to the first quarter of 2018, as per the Department of Statistics.

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin stated that this means there are 8.54 million positions in the private sector, whereas the first quarter of last year had seen 8.46 million positions.

“The rate of filled positions was 97.7 percent, an increase of 0.1 percent compared to Q1 2018,” he said in the Employment Statistics First Quarter 2019.

The Department revealed that jobs created in Q1 were largely in the semi-skilled category at 49.1%, followed by the skilled category at 44.9%, and the low-skilled category at 6.0%. The quarter also saw the services sector take the largest share of positions and filled positions, at 51.9% and 52.6% respectively. This was followed by the manufacturing sector, at 26.2% and 25.5% respectively. The same sector also saw the largest registered share of vacancies at 54.3%, followed by services at 21.3%, and agriculture at 14.3%.

Datuk Seri added that jobs created are largely attributed to the services sector at 52.2%, with the construction and manufacturing sectors registering a share of 20.2% and 17.5%, respectively.

The findings are in tandem with the recent report released by the Monster Employment Index (MEI) which states that online hiring in Malaysia is expected to continue to grow in line with the projected growth of Malaysia’s main economic sector. According to MEI, the overall annual growth in online hiring registered a 7% year-on-year (y-o-y) increase in April 2019 with eight out of nine industries showing positive annual growth.

Malaysian economy continues to expand at a steady and promising pace, and the country’s main economic sectors are expected to record positive growth, with the service and manufacturing sectors projected to grow by 5.7% and 4.8% respectively. After the significant increase in the first quarter, the second quarter should continue to exhibit positive growth, as per Monster.com CEO for the Asia Pacific and the Middle East Abhijeet Mukherjee.