More than 2 million jobs are vacant in the European Union, according to EURES data – the European cooperation network for employment services, designed to facilitate the free movement of workers. Although there is a demand for workforce, just over 800,000 applications were submitted in April, according to the same data, which indicates a surplus of jobs during this period.
Most vacancies are available in countries such as Germany – over 628,000, France – over 600,000 and Belgium, about 200,000 jobs.
In terms of professions, the most looked up after are those that have direct interaction with people, especially in-store salespeople, sales agents and sales and marketing leaders.
The same statistics at EU level indicate that most job applications are from micro-enterprises (<10 employees), followed by small enterprises and far away from them are the large enterprises. If we take into consideration the studies, the most requested level of education is the high school or equivalent for the jobs mentioned above.
However, most applicants are people with a higher level of education, from countries such as France, Greece and Italy, with mostly technical and engineering training.
The SARS-COV2 pandemic had a major impact on the labor market and forced employers to rethink their recruitment and selection processes. The activity has suddenly moved into the online environment in a very large proportion, the importance of soft skills (creativity, empathy, emotional intelligence, stress management) has increased, and employers are starting to pay more attention to artificial intelligence. This is the reason why more and more companies are currently looking for people willing to interact directly, but the reluctance of those looking for a job is also increased. This is indicated by the surplus of labor at EU level in April 2021, which is almost three times higher than the demand for labor.