Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, publishes today the number of job vacancies in Belgian enterprises. The figures presented in this press release reflect the situation in the 1st quarter of 2020 and therefore take into account the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the number of job vacancies during this period (see methodological note here below). The job vacancy rate - the number of job vacancies compared to the total number of jobs in the enterprise - has mainly decreased in the sectors “accommodation and food service activities” and “financial and insurance activities”, while it has increased in the sector “information and communication” and in the non-profit sector. The job vacancy rate for temporary jobs is considerably higher than that for permanent positions.
The total number of job vacancies decreased by 7 %
In the first quarter of 2020, there were 129,170 job vacancies in Belgian enterprises, compared to 139,420 in the fourth quarter of 2019, i.e. a decrease of 7 %.
The job vacancy rate - the number of job vacancies compared to the total number of jobs in the enterprise - has decreased from 3.39 % to 3.20 %.
The number of job vacancies in Brussels has increased by 1,057, while Flanders and Wallonia registered a decrease of respectively 9,065 and 2,241 job vacancies compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.
With 67 % of all job vacancies in Belgium, Flanders remains the region with the largest number of job vacancies in the country, followed by Wallonia with 19 % and Brussels with 14 %.
The job vacancy rate remains higher in Flanders (3.53 %) and in Brussels (3.17 %) than in Wallonia (2.41 %).
Type of enterprises and type of jobs
There were 5.17 times as many job vacancies in large and medium-sized enterprises as in small enterprises. However, the job vacancy rate remains higher in small enterprises (3.98 %) than in large enterprises (3.08 %).
Although more job vacancies are offered for permanent jobs (84.46 %), the job vacancy rate is significantly higher for temporary jobs (16.11 %) than for permanent jobs (2.79 %).
Breakdown according to the sector of activity (NACE)
More than three-quarter (79.1 %) of job vacancies are offered in five economic sectors: the non-profit sector, scientific activities and administrative services, the industry, wholesale and retail trade and construction.
The job vacancy rate decreases mainly in the sector “accommodation and food service activities” (-2.63 percentage points) and in the sector “financial and insurance activities” (-1.19 point), while it increases in the sector “information and communication” (+0.39 point) and in the non-profit sector (+0.33 point).
Methodological note
JVS is a quarterly survey based on a questionnaire that asks enterprises for their number of job vacancies at a reference date (15/02/2020 for Q1 of 2020) which is considered to be representative of the whole period. However, given that the Covid-19 crisis began in Belgium in March, to consider these values as representative of the quarter would be inconsistent and would lead to an overestimation of the number of job vacancies in the majority of the sectors studied.
This is why it has been decided to apply correction coefficients to the results obtained via our survey. Since the Covid-19 crisis had an impact on the figures for March, only this month is corrected, while the results of the survey are considered to be representative for January and February. More information is available here.