Chief statistician Uzir Mahidin said Malaysia’s labour demand showed a 1.2% increase year-on-year trend, in line with the lower unemployment rate of 3.2%.

He said the number of jobs filled increased by 1.2% in the third quarter to nearly 98%, reaching 8.82 million jobs compared with 8.71 million in the same period last year.

Job vacancies rose by 0.4% totalling 191,800, a slight increase compared with 190,900 in the third quarter of 2023.

“The number of jobs created for this quarter demonstrated a slight decline of 0.6%, with 31,800 new jobs created, compared with 32,000 in the third quarter of 2023,” he said in a statement.

In terms of sectors, manufacturing drove job vacancies, making up 59.6%, followed by the electrical, electronic, and the optical products sector’s 33,800 job openings.

About 55.9% (107,100) of the job vacancies were for semi-skilled roles, followed by the skilled (47,500) and low-skilled (37,200) categories.