Eurostat: Greece Ranks High in EU Job Vacancy Rates

Greece is among the EU member-states with the highest job vacancy rates in the first quarter of 2024, according to the European Union’s statistical authority Eurostat.

Notably, Greece registered the highest uptick in the metric compared to the respective period last year.

The job vacancy rate in the EU was 2.6% in the first quarter of 2024, the same as in the last quarter of 2023 and down from 2.9% in the first quarter of 2023

According to Eurostat, in the first quarter of 2024, the job vacancy rate stood at 2.9% in the Eurozone, the same as in the last quarter of 2023 and down from 3.2% in the first quarter of 2023, according to figures published by Eurostat.

Significant worker shortages for specific job positions are observed in industry and construction (2.5%) and services (3.2%) in the common currency zone, while in the EU the corresponding rates are 2.3% and 3.0%, respectively.

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%). Conversely, the lowest rates were observed in Romania (0.7%), Bulgaria (0.8%), and Poland and Spain (0.9% in both).

The largest increases were witnessed in Greece (+1.6 percentage points) and Malta (+0.6 percentage points). The largest decreases were recorded in Finland and Sweden (-0.8 percentage points in both), Luxembourg and Austria (-0.7 percentage points in both), as well as in the Czech Republic and Germany (-0.6 percentage points in both).