Chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin said in total, there are 8.35 million jobs available in the economic sectors in Q2 2021, down by 0.4% compared to 8.38 million jobs in the same quarter of 2020.

On job take-up, 8.17 million jobs are filled, compared with 8.21 million in same quarter last year.

More than half of the filled jobs were in the services sector (52.4%), followed by manufacturing (26.4%) and construction (14.9%), said Uzir in a statement today.

Despite the lower take-up, the number of vacancies went up by 5% to 178,000 due to the low base number recorded in the same quarter in 2020 (169,500 vacancies). However, job vacancies remained lower than the typical average of 200,000 pre-crisis.

Most vacancies were in the manufacturing sector with 100,100 jobs (56.2%), largely in the electrical, electronic and optical products sub-sector (31,600 jobs), followed by petroleum, chemical, rubber and plastic products (18,800 jobs).

The services sector meanwhile recorded 27,600 vacancies particularly in wholesale and retail.

More than half of all job vacancies, (55% or 98,000) in Q2 2021 were from the semi-skilled category. Only 24% of vacancies are for skilled jobs (42,800).

Meanwhile, 37,300 vacancies or 21% are for low-skilled labour.

For jobs created, Uzir said 16,200 were created this quarter (18.3%) as compared to the same quarter last year (Q2 2020: 13,700).

Jobs were largely created for the semi-skilled category (60.8% or 9,800). Only 5,000 skilled jobs (30.8%) were created.

Most jobs created were from the manufacturing sector at 44.6% or 7,200 jobs.