A check to agree to come for a job interview, more flexible hours, benefits in kind such as a gym membership… Faced with the labor shortage, companies in Prague, Bucharest, Berlin or Stockholm compete in ingenuity to attract candidates.
This means that throughout the European Union (EU), the labor shortage is felt. Unemployment, which has long plagued the countries of the south of the continent as well as France, is declining. Its rate was 7% of the working population in December 2021 in the euro zone, the lowest in its recent history, at least since the creation of the single currency. In the EU as a whole, it was 6.4%.
Thanks to the aid deployed by the States to mitigate the recession caused by the first confinements, the pandemic did not result in the violent social shock once feared. As economies recover, the job vacancy rate reached 2.4% in the third quarter of 2021, nearly double its average over the past decade. In Belgium, the Netherlands or the Czech Republic, it is even twice as high. The latter is now trying to compensate for the lack of arms by bringing in employees from Ukraine, Spain and even the Philippines.
Initially, the shortage of labor seemed to be explained by the departure from the labor market of many people, discouraged by disappointing career prospects, which would have artificially improved unemployment statistics. In the end, this does not seem to be the case: these departures are less numerous than in the United States, where there is talk of the “great resignation” phenomenon, and in fact, the European employment rate has returned to its level of before the pandemic, at 69.3% in the third quarter of 2021, compared to 62% across the Atlantic. It is therefore that the labor market is indeed doing better.
However, the picture remains very nuanced depending on the state. If the North of Europe is close to full employment, the South is still far from it. Furthermore, the employment rate is 77% in Germany, compared to 68% in France, 64% in Spain and only 60% in Italy and Greece.
To deal with this situation, companies and governments are multiplying their strategies to attract employees, especially qualified profiles. Or try to bring back those who have left in large numbers since the 2008 financial crisis, notably from Spain, Greece and Italy.
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