Labor market’s peculiar mix
Economy has a serious shortage of workers, with over 70,000 vacancies, and a high jobless rate
The Greek labor market is showing an explosive mixture of relatively high unemployment – which despite the increase in employment remains significantly above 10% – and thousands of vacant positions.
According to the first-quarter data published on Thursday by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), vacancies posted a 15-year negative record, reaching 70,826, creating a peculiar situation in the domestic market.
With nearly eight in 10 employers saying they are struggling to attract talent, the largest employers say there are currently at least 150,000 unfilled posts and businesses see the retaining and developing of talent as one of the most important challenges for the coming months, and the problem of job vacancies emerges as one of the biggest.
It is indicative that while ELSTAT only recently presented its estimate of the unemployment rate for the first quarter of 2024 at 12.1%, negatively surprising even high-ranking government officials, on Thursday it published the statistics on vacant jobs, numbering 70,826 in the entire economy, which constitutes a 15-year high. Specifically, in the immediately preceding fourth quarter of 2023, there were 41,120 vacancies. This means within just one quarter there was an increase of 72.2%. The difference is even greater on an annual basis, since in the first quarter of last year, ELSTAT recorded only 32,850 vacancies – that is, an increase of 115.6%.
That happened while unemployment in the first quarter of this year was at 12.1%, recording an increase of 0.3 percentage points compared to the immediately preceding quarter and also by 1.5 points compared to the corresponding period of time a year earlier.
It is therefore established that the increase in job vacancies is recorded in a period when the overall unemployment rate not only does not decline, but on the contrary records an upward trend.
According to ELSTAT data, the next highest number of job vacancies, 51,613, was in the first quarter of 2009, exactly 15 years ago, when the unemployment rate stood at 9.1%.
