PETALING JAYA: The number of vacancies advertised online in the fourth quarter of 2023 (Q4’23) recorded an increase of 32.5% with 448,181 vacancies against 338,305 vacancies in Q3’23, said Chief Statistician Malaysia, Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.
In Q4’23, there were 85,814 establishments offering job vacancies compared with 77,499 in Q3’23.
On a year-on-year basis, the number of job vacancies registered three-digit growth of 119.2% against 77.9% in Q3’23.
A monthly breakdown showed the highest number of job vacancies advertised online in Q4’23 was in December, with 172,777 openings. Meanwhile, there are 137,449 and 137,955 vacancies in October and November.
Mohd Uzir said, “As for job vacancies advertised online based on occupation category, almost half of the vacancies were concentrated in the professional field with 48.9% or 218,947 vacancies in Q4 2023. This was followed by 18.5% (82,950) in the category of managers while technicians & associate professionals accounted for 17% (76,284).”
On further disaggregation of the hottest jobs during the quarter, there was higher demand for advertising & marketing professionals, administrative associate professionals, managing directors & chief executives, accountants & auditors, and software developers.
In the economic sector, Mohd Uzir said, most of the job vacancies in Q4’23 were in the services sector with a share of 50.9% or 228,148 vacancies.
“Observing the job vacancies by economic activity, wholesale and retail trade dominated the vacancies with 15.9% or 71,154 jobs. Manufacturing recorded a total of 32,976 vacancies (7.4%), followed by administrative & support service activities at 32,113 vacancies (7.2%) and professional, scientific & technical activities with 27,757 vacancies (6.2%).
According to the chief statistician, “Popular jobs offered in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training category were advertising and marketing professionals which recorded the highest number of vacancies (33,079),
followed by administrative associate professionals (20,240) and software developers (12,318). As for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics category, the top three jobs were project manager (4,662), software engineer (3,571) and technician (3,084).
In the meantime, the highest demand jobs for Critical Occupation List was advertising and marketing professionals (33,090), managing directors & chief executives (19,266) as well as accountant & auditors (18,025).
Regarding job vacancies advertised online at state level, all states except Perlis showed an increases in vacancies compared with Q3’23. The Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur posted the highest vacancies at 81,574 or 18.2%. Another state with high vacancies was Selangor with 43,673 (9.7%), followed by Johor at 19,822 (4.4%). Meanwhile, Perlis recorded the lowest number, with only 79 vacancies.
