Vacancies

Vacancies ( English vacancies ) are on the labor market by employers to the labor office reported and vacant jobs and positions . The statistical counterpart is unemployment .

General

In the sense of organizational theory , “vacancies” are positions that are made available to a worker for the purpose of fulfilling a paid work task by an employer or service provider. In the establishment plans of business and administration there are existing, but no longer or not yet filled positions. Eurostat defines the vacancy throughout Europe as "a newly created, unoccupied or soon-to-be-vacant paid position which the employer takes active steps to fill in order to find a suitable applicant outside the company and is willing to take further steps, and which the employer intends to fill immediately or within a certain period of time. "

The degree of accuracy of these vacancies is controversial. This is mainly due to the fact that employers report vacancies on a voluntary basis. The actual demand for labor ("vacancies") on the labor market is unlikely to match the labor supply because in times of high unemployment ( underemployment ) it is to be expected that many employers will not report vacancies because they can find job seekers without the employment office. Conversely, in times of overemployment employers tend to report more vacancies than they actually have available.

Legal issues

According to Section 1, Paragraph 2, No. 1 of Book III of the Social Code , the aim of job promotion is to enable vacancies to be filled quickly. For this purpose, according to the target provision of Section 2, Paragraph 3 of Book III of the Social Code, employers should inform the employment agencies at an early stage about operational changes that could affect employment . This includes in particular notices of vacant training and jobs , planned business expansions and the associated demand for labor, the qualification requirements for the adjusted workers planned operating restrictions or relocation and the associated impact and planning how layoffs of workers avoided or transitions organized in other employment can teach. There is therefore no real obligation to report vacancies.

statistics

“Vacancies” are those that employers are planning to hire , including newly created positions, existing positions that are still occupied by employees during the applicant search, or existing positions that are vacant during the search period. "Reported jobs" are jobs with a planned duration of employment of more than seven calendar days by employers to employment agencies and carriers of basic security for job placement were reported.

An important indicator of the intensity of labor demand is the vacancy rate , which measures the proportion of vacancies in relation to the total of all positions and is calculated as follows:

${\displaystyle {\text{Vakanzrate}}={\frac {\text{Anzahl offene Stellen}}{\text{Anzahl besetzte Stellen + Anzahl offene Stellen}}}\cdot 100\,\%}$.

In 2018, an average of around 2.3 million people were registered as unemployed in Germany. This means that unemployment continued to decline compared to the previous year and fell to the lowest level since reunification. In contrast, there was a high of around 4.9 million unemployed in 2005. This significant relaxation on the labor market is reflected in the number of vacancies: They rose from 207,000 (2004) to almost 800,000 (2018). The ratio between the number of unemployed and registered job vacancies (vacancy rate) has changed accordingly. While there were 21.2 unemployed for every registered job in 2004, in 2018 there were only 3.0.

economic aspects

On the labor market, the labor supply of the employees and the labor demand of the employers face each other. The “vacancies” statistically constitute the demand for labor. However, the unemployed cannot simply be allocated to the vacancies because this usually fails due to insufficient qualifications ; this is structural unemployment . For example, if a mechatronics technician is wanted and a bank clerk is unemployed, the vacancy remains vacant ( English mismatch ). The Beveridge curve contrasts the structural divergence of labor supply and labor demand on the labor market based on the unemployment rate and vacancy rate.

The number of reported vacancies is an important indicator of future economic developments on the labor market, which provides information on the extent and development of the unmet labor demand. If more and more vacancies are reported over a period of several months, this can speak in favor of an improving economic outlook and vice versa. Before and during a boom , the number of vacancies increases significantly and unemployment decreases. It also depends on how quickly vacancies can be filled ( time-to-fill ). Overemployment occurs when there are more vacancies than unemployed , whereas in the case of underemployment , the number of unemployed predominates.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dirk Piekenbrock, Gabler Kompakt-Lexikon Volkswirtschaftslehre , 2009, p. 317
2. ↑ Eurostat, Labor Market, Vacancies , 2019 , accessed on 14 May 2019
3. ↑ Reiner Zwer, Introduction to Economic and Social Statistics , 1994, p. 88
4. ↑ Wolfgang Franz, Arbeitsmarktökonomik , 2003, p. 103
5. ↑ Anja Kettner, Shortage of Skilled Workers - Fact or Fiction? , 2012, p. 61
6. ↑ Eurostat, Labor Market, Vacancies , 2019
7. ^ Institute for Work and Qualification at the University of Duisburg-Essen, unemployed and registered job vacancies , May 2019, p. 2
8. ↑ Wolfgang Cezanne, Allgemeine Volkswirtschaftslehre , 2005, p. 281
9. ↑ Dirk Piekenbrock, Gabler Kompakt-Lexikon Volkswirtschaftslehre , 2009, p. 54
10. ↑ Dirk Piekenbrock, Gabler Kompakt-Lexikon Volkswirtschaftslehre , 2009, p. 317

Please note the information on legal issues!