PUTRAJAYA: Malaysia's labour demand increased by 1.8% to 9.21 million jobs in the fourth quarter of 2025 (Q4 2025), marking the highest growth since the first quarter of 2024, says the Statistics Department (DOSM).
The growth was driven by comprehensive government fiscal support and policy initiatives aimed at stimulating economic activity, said chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin.
"Filled jobs accounted for 97.8% of total jobs and vacancies made up the remaining 2.2%. Meanwhile, there were a total of 32.1 thousand new jobs created during this quarter.
"The number of filled jobs has consistently edged up to 9.02 million, the highest recorded in the series, marking a 1.8% year-on year growth (Q4 2024: 8.86 million)," he said in a statement on Thursday (Feb 12).
Elaborating, Mohd Uzir said all sectors contributed positively to the overall growth, led by the services sector at 2.6%.
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This sector, he said, also dominated filled jobs, accounting for 53.1% or 4.80 million filled jobs, followed by the manufacturing (26.9%: 2.42 million) and construction (13.9%: 1.25 million) sectors.
In terms of skills, the semi-skilled category emerged as the largest contributor with 62.3% (5.62 million), followed by the skilled and low-skilled categories with 25.3% (2.27 million) and 12.4% (1.12 million), respectively.
By economic activity, the manufacturing sector had the most vacancies at 115,800 (58.4%), mainly in the electrical, electronic, and optical Products sub-sector (35,700) and the petroleum, chemical, rubber, and plastic products sub-sector (20,500).
Additionally, the agriculture and services sectors recorded 32,000 (16.2%) and 25,000 (12.6%) vacancies, respectively. - Bernama
