More than a quarter of entrepreneurs are struggling with staff shortages
Nearly 28 percent of Dutch entrepreneurs currently have difficulty finding staff. This is evident on Monday from figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)† That percentage is exceptionally high compared to the past ten years, but slightly lower than the staff shortages in the last quarter of 2021. Then 30.4 percent of entrepreneurs had difficulty finding staff†
Since 2015, entrepreneurs have increasingly suffered from staff shortages on a quarterly basis, according to measurements by Statistics Netherlands. An exception to this is the period around the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, although staff shortages have increased again since the third quarter of that year. In particular last year, when the economy started to recover, the deficits increased rapidly.
In particular, companies in the information and communication sector, such as IT companies, and those in business services are faced with major shortages. In those sectors, respectively, 36.4 percent and 44.1 percent of entrepreneurs say that they currently have difficulty recruiting workers. The least affected by these shortages are companies in the rental and sale of real estate (16.7 percent), such as homes, and companies in the sports and cultural sector (16.9 percent).