Although the European Commission has introduced various policies to address the challenges of employment and social issues in the EU, millions of jobs remain empty.
Eurostat estimates that about 13.1 million people were unemployed in the EU in May this year.
In the second quarter of 2025, there are over 1 million vacancies in Germany and half a million in France.
So where are the highest and lowest rates of vacancies in Europe? How many vacancies are there in European countries? And which countries have the most in need of workers?
The Euronews Business examines in detail the percentages and the number of vacancies across Europe.
What is a vacant job
A job vacant is a remunerated position that has been created recently, is empty or is going to empty. According to Eurostat, this means that the employer is actively seeking a suitable candidate outside the business. The employer may plan to fill the position immediately or within a specific period of time.
When calculating the vacancies (JVR), both the number of vacancies and the number of occupied positions are taken into account in order to capture overall demand and vacancies. Basically, it measures the percentage of total vacancies.
For example, 3% means that if there are 100 jobs a total of 100 jobs, 97 are occupied and 3 are empty.
In the second quarter of 2025, 2.1% of EU jobs are empty. This figure is reduced compared to 2.2% in the first quarter of 2025 and 2.4% in the second quarter of 2024.
JVR ranges from 0.6% in Romania to 4.2% in the Netherlands. This big difference reflects the different conditions of the labor market throughout Europe.
JVR is also 3%or higher in Belgium (4.1%), Austria and Norway (both 3.4%) and Malta (3%). This shows that northwestern Europe is in the highest demand for employees. Eastern and Southern Europe are in weaker demand.
For some countries, the second quarter elements are not yet available, so comparison is used for the first trimester. This can slightly affect the ranking.
Percentage of jobs over EU average in Germany and France
Following Romania, the lowest rates of vacancies are recorded in Spain and Poland (0.8%), Bulgaria (0.9%) and Turkey and Slovakia (1.1%).
The percentage of jobs is above the EU average (2.1%) in Europe’s two largest economies. It is 2.5% in both Germany and France. In Italy, the percentage is 1.7%.
In Greece, the number of job vacancies is 52,070 and at 2.2%.
Among 30 countries, including EU Member States, Candidates, United Kingdom and European Free Transaction Zone (EKES), Germany has the highest number of vacancies with 1.05 million.
At the same time, Germany is the most popular immigration destination in Europe. According to Eurostat, Germany had the largest number of immigrants in 2023. It welcomed 324,000 from EU countries, 905,000 from non -EU countries and 42,000 of unknown origin, a total of 1,271,000.
Spain, however, presents a different picture. It ranks 8th in vacancies with 145,000, but follows Germany closely in total immigration with 1.25 million. This shows that each country must be examined separately, taking into account factors such as the size of its economy and growth trends.
The United Kingdom (Estimation of the National Statistical Service) is second with 781,000, followed by France with 504,000. The Netherlands ranks fourth with 400,000 vacancies.
Turkey has 206,000 vacancies. He also recorded the highest percentage of young people who are not employed, do not study and attend training seminars in 2024.
Other countries with over 100,000 vacancies are Belgium (170,000), Austria (148,000), Spain (145,000), Sweden (113,000), Norway (107,000) and Poland (101,000).
Iceland (5,000) has the lowest number of vacancies, followed by Luxembourg (7,000), Malta (8,000) and Northern Macedonia (10,000).
Lack of skills
According to surveys, the lack of skills is an important challenge for employers throughout Europe. For example, a 2023 survey by ManpowerGroup found that 75% of employers in 21 European countries could not find workers with appropriate skills. This is an increase of 42% in 2018, ie an increase of 33 percentage points. In this survey, Germany and Greece recorded the highest rate with 82%.
Similarly, at the end of 2023, a Eurobarometer survey found that 54% of EU small and medium -sized enterprises (SMEs) ranked the lack of skills among their three most important problems.
Source: Skai
I am Janice Wiggins, and I am an author at News Bulletin 247, and I mostly cover economy news. I have a lot of experience in this field, and I know how to get the information that people need. I am a very reliable source, and I always make sure that my readers can trust me.
