In countries with a majority vacancies Greece is included in the EU in the first quarter of 2024, according to its data Eurostat, while it is worth noting that our country recorded the greatest increase in job vacancies compared to the corresponding quarter of 2023.
In particular, Greece with a rate of 3.1% is in seventh place in the ranking of EU countries based on job vacancies, while it recorded an annual increase of 1.6 percentage points, which is much greater compared to other EU countries.
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According to Eurostat, in the first quarter of 2024, the job vacancy rate was 2.9% in the euro area, unchanged from the last quarter of 2023 and down to 3.2% from the first quarter of 2023.
In the EU as a whole the corresponding figure is 2.6% for the same period, the same as in the last quarter of 2023 and down from 2.9% in the first quarter of 2023.
What industries are “suffering”
In the eurozone, the largest shortage of workers for specific occupations is found in industry and construction (2.5%) and services (3.2%), while in the EU the corresponding percentages are 2.3% and 3.0%.
The highest job vacancy rates in the first quarter of 2024 were recorded in Austria (4.5%), Belgium (4.4%) and the Netherlands (4.4%). On the contrary, the lowest rate was observed in Romania (0.7%), Bulgaria (0.8%), Poland and Spain (both 0.9%).
Compared to the same quarter last year, the job vacancy rate increased in six Member States, remained stable in three Member States and decreased in eighteen Member States. The biggest growth was, as mentioned above, in Greece (+1.6 pm) and Malta (+0.6 pm). The biggest declines were recorded in Finland and Sweden (-0.8 pg both), Luxembourg and Austria (-0.7 pg both) as well as in the Czech Republic and Germany (- 0.6 am in both).