In the fourth quarter of last year, compared to the previous quarter, the number of vacant positions on the German labor market increased by 160,900, or 8.8 percent, and year-on-year by 295,500, or 17.5 percent, according to the Federal Employment Office (BA) labor market and based on the regular company survey of the Occupational Research Institute (IAB).
The vast majority of vacant positions were already vacant at the time of the survey. Nationally, 1.63 million (82 percent) jobs could be filled immediately, and 352,500 (18 percent) could be filled later. This shows that the competitive pressure for suitable labor is quite high.
The labor shortage reached a new peak: the ratio of jobs to be filled immediately and the total labor demand of companies also increased to 4.5 percent.
There were 4.5 vacancies for every 100 workers requested by companies in the fourth quarter of last year. This figure was still 4.0 in the second and third quarters of 2022.
Despite the overall positive signals from the German labor market, companies are still suffering from the consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine. In the fourth quarter of 2022, 54 percent of surveyed companies said that the war had a negative impact on them – this is an increase of 6 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.
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