Statbel, the Belgian statistical office, publishes today the number of job vacancies in Belgian enterprises. The figures in this press release reflect the situation in the 4th quarter 2020 and so take into account the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the number of job vacancies during this period (see methodological note below). The job vacancy rate – the number of job vacancies compared to the total number of jobs in the enterprise – decreases primarily in the sectors ‘accommodation and food service activities’ and ‘manufacturing’, while it increases mainly in the sector ‘information and communication’. The job vacancy rate for temporary positions remains significantly higher than that of permanent positions.
The total number of job vacancies decreases by 12.04 %
In the fourth quarter 2020, Belgian enterprises offered 115,553 job vacancies compared to 131,378 in the third quarter 2020, i.e. a decrease of 12.04 %.
The job vacancy rate – the number of job vacancies compared to the total number of jobs in the enterprise – has also decreased from 3.26 % to 2.91 %.
The number of job vacancies fell in the 3 regions, with a decrease of 9,765 job vacancies in Flanders, 3,884 in Wallonia and 2,176 in Brussels compared to the third quarter 2020.
With 65% of all job vacancies in Belgium, Flanders remains the region with the largest number of job vacancies, followed by Wallonia with 21% and Brussels with 14 %.
The job vacancy rate remains higher in Flanders (3.18%) and in Brussels (2.78%) than in Wallonia (2.35%).
Type of enterprises and type of jobs
There are 3.73 times more job vacancies in large and medium-sized enterprises than in small enterprises. However, the job vacancy rate remains higher in small enterprises (4.97%) than in large enterprises (2.62%).
Although more job vacancies are offered for permanent positions (85.33%), the job vacancy rate is significantly higher for temporary positions (15.30%) than for permanent positions (2.55%).
Breakdown by activity sector (NACE)
More than three quarters (78.5 %) of job vacancies can be found in five economic sectors: the non-profit sector, scientific activities and administrative services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade and construction.
The job vacancy rate mainly decreases in the sectors ‘accommodation and food service activities’ (-2.27 points) and ‘manufacturing’ (-0.88 points), while it mainly increases in the sectors ‘information and communication’ (+0.39 points), ‘transportation and storage’ (+0.34 points) and ‘construction’ (+0.33 points).
Methodological note
JVS is a quarterly survey based on a questionnaire that asks enterprises for their number of job vacancies at a reference date (15/11/2020 for Q4 of 2020) which is considered to be representative of the whole period. However, given that the Covid-19 crisis began in Belgium around mid-March and still has an impact today on the labour market, considering the value on 15/11 as representative of the situation for the whole fourth quarter would be inconsistent and would lead to a biased estimation of the number of job vacancies in the majority of the sectors examined.
This is why it has been decided to apply correction coefficients on the results obtained via our survey. More information is available here.