Το ποσοστό κενών θέσεων εργασίας στην ευρωζώνη ανήλθε στο 2,1%

Notes for users

Revisions and timetable

Compared with the rates published in the News Release of 15 September 2025, the job vacancy rate for the second quarter of 2025 was revised from 2.2% to 2.3% for the euro area and remained the same for the EU.

Country notes

Denmark, France and Italy: data are not strictly comparable. In Denmark, only units within the business economy (NACE Rev. 2 sections B to N) are surveyed. In France and Italy, ‘Public administration and defence; compulsory social security’ (NACE Rev. 2 section O) is not surveyed while public institutions are not fully covered in ‘Education’ as well as ‘Human health and social work activities’ (NACE Rev. 2 sections P and Q).

Czechia: primary data are collected by the Labour Office from administrative sources. With the introduction of an amendment to the Employment Act (No 470/2024), in force from 1 January 2025, vacancies older than 6 months are automatically closed unless the employer registers them again. As a consequence, since the first quarter of 2025 the number of vacancies have been sizably lower compared with previous periods.

Methods and definitions

The job vacancy rate (JVR) measures the proportion of total posts that are vacant, expressed as a percentage:

JVR = (number of job vacancies) / (number of occupied posts + number of job vacancies).

A job vacancy is defined as a paid post (newly created, unoccupied or about to become vacant) for which the employer is taking active steps to find a suitable candidate from outside the enterprise concerned and is prepared to take more steps and which the employer intends to fill either immediately or in the near future. Under this definition, a job vacancy should be open to candidates from outside an enterprise. However, this does not exclude the possibility of the employer recruiting an internal candidate for the post. A vacant post that is open only to internal candidates should not be treated as a job vacancy. An occupied post is a paid post within an organisation to which an employee has been assigned.

Job vacancy rates cover NACE Rev. 2 sections B to S. This aggregate is referred to as ‘Whole economy’ for the sake of simplification, even if sections A: ‘Agriculture, forestry and fishing’, T: ‘Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods and services producing activities of households for own use’ and U: ‘Activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies’ are excluded. Sections B to S include the industry (B to E), construction (F) and services (G to N) sectors together with (mainly) non-market services (O to S).

The job vacancy rates for the EU and euro area aggregates are based on Member States data, including estimates for recent periods when values are not yet available. If national data are only available for a sub-population, for example excluding smaller units or some activities, this sub-population is used in the computation of the job vacancy rate for the aggregates.

Geographical information

Euro area (EA20): Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland.

European Union (EU27): Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden.