Amount of unfilled job vacancies marginally down

• Fewer than 100 thousand vacancies by the end of March
• Number of vacancies down by 5 thousand
• Amount of vacancies substantially down in health care and welfare sector

According to the latest figures released by Statistics Netherlands, there were 97 thousand unfilled job vacancies by the end of March, i.e. 5 thousand down from the previous quarter. The figure is adjusted for seasonal variation. The downward trend thus continues and has reached the lowest level in ten years.

The number of vacancies declined across the board, but most - by 2 thousand to 13 thousand - in the sector health care and welfare. Public administration was the only sector to show a small increase. By the end of March, there were 5 thousand unfilled vacancies in this sector.

The development of the number of unfilled vacancies is affected by the number of new vacancies and the number of filled vacancies. In the first quarter of this year, 153 thousand new vacancies were registered, 16 thousand fewer than one year previously. The number of filled vacancies in the fourth quarter was also below the level of one year previously and stood at 150 thousand.