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Employment Statistics, Second Quarter 2026
Employment Statistics, First Quarter 2026 12 February 2026
Employment Statistics, Fourth Quarter 2025 13 November 2025
Employment Statistics, Third Quarter 2025 14 August 2025
Employment Statistics, Second Quarter 2025 15 May 2025
Employment Statistics, First Quarter 2025 13 February 2025
Employment Statistics, Fourth Quarter 2024 Show all release archives
Overview
Introduction
This publication presents the labour demand statistics derived from the Quarterly Employment Survey conducted among registered private sector businesses encompassing major economic activities namely, Agriculture, Mining & Quarrying, Manufacturing, Construction and Services. The principal statistics of employment presented in this report are jobs, filled jobs, vacancies and jobs created by economic activity and skills category.
Labour Demand, Second Quarter of 2026
Throughout the quarter, the total number of jobs, which consists of filled jobs and vacancies, increased to 9.25 million (Q2 2025: 9.10 million). Of the total jobs, filled jobs accounted for 9.05 million (Q2 2025: 8.90 million), while vacancies contributed 195.7 thousand (Q2 2025: 194.9 thousand). On a yearly basis, filled jobs expanded by 1.7 per cent, maintaining a filled jobs rate of 97.9 per cent. In the meantime, the number of vacancies increased by 0.4 per cent, registering a vacancy rate of 2.1 per cent. The number of jobs created recorded a marginal decline of 1.2 per cent year-on-year to 31.5 thousand.
Labour Demand by Skills Category
The skilled category represented an increase of 2.5 per cent year-on-year, making up 2.35 million jobs compared to 2.29 million jobs in Q2 2025. Within this category, the number of filled jobs rose to 2.30 million, whereas the filled jobs rate remained at 97.9 per cent. Job vacancies comprised 2.1 per cent of the total jobs, equivalent to 50.2 thousand vacancies. Furthermore, the number of jobs created decreased by 1.2 per cent on yearly basis to 7.9 thousand (Q2 2025: 8.0 thousand).
The semi-skilled category surpassed other skills category in terms of total jobs, registering 5.74 million with a 1.1 per cent year-on-year increase. The filled jobs rate comprised of 98.1 per cent from the total jobs, equivalent to 5.63 million jobs, while vacancy rate accounted for 1.9 per cent of the total jobs, amounting to 107.3 thousand vacancies. In addition, jobs created grew marginally by 1.0 per cent, bringing the total to 20.8 thousand (Q2 2025: 20.6 thousand).
As for the low-skilled category, the number of jobs rose by 2.8 per cent yearly, totalling 1.17 million jobs (Q2 2025: 1.13 million). Of this total, 1.13 million jobs were filled, corresponding to a rate of 96.7 per cent, whereas 38.2 thousand were vacancies, marking a vacancy rate of 3.3 per cent. Meanwhile, jobs created decreased by 17.0 per cent year-on-year, resulting in 2.8 thousand jobs, compared with 3.3 thousand in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
Labour Demand by Economic Activity
The distribution of labour demand by economic activity was primarily concentrated in the Services sector, which made up of 52.5 percent (4.86 million) of total jobs. This was followed by the Manufacturing sector, contributing 27.4 per cent (2.53 million) while the Construction and Agriculture accounted for 13.8 per cent (1.28 million) and 5.4 per cent (503.1 thousand) of total jobs, respectively. The Mining & Quarrying sector recorded the smallest share of 0.9 per cent (79.7 thousand).
Filled jobs were dominated by the Services sector, with a share of 53.4 per cent (4.83 million), followed by the Manufacturing and Construction sectors, with shares of 26.7 per cent (2.42 million) and 13.8 per cent (1.25 million), respectively. The Agriculture sector posted a 5.2 per cent share, corresponding to 472.7 thousand filled jobs, while the Mining & Quarrying recorded a share of 0.9 per cent, equivalent to 79.3 thousand of filled jobs.
The Manufacturing sector continued to be the largest contributor to total vacancies, representing 58.3 per cent (114.0 thousand). The Agriculture sector ranked second with 15.5 per cent (30.4 thousand), while the Services and Construction sectors recorded 12.5 per cent (24.3 thousand) and 13.5 per cent (26.5 thousand), respectively. For Mining & Quarrying, this sector recorded the smallest share at 0.2 per cent (0.5 thousand).
Additionally, jobs created were largely driven by the Services sector, which accounted for 45.7 per cent (14.4 thousand) followed by Manufacturing at 38.3 per cent (12.1 thousand). The Construction, Agriculture and Mining & Quarrying sectors posted 9.8 per cent (3.1 thousand), 5.3 per cent (1.7 thousand) and 0.9 per cent (0.3 thousand) of jobs created, respectively.
The publication of the Employment Statistics, Second Quarter of 2026 can be downloaded through eStatistik portal.
Released by:
DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS MALAYSIA
13 August 2026
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