Practice the breaststroke with a swimming instructor? That is not possible on Sunday in Den Hommel for the time being. The Utrecht swimming pool has too few swimming instructors. And that is why it must now cancel its Sunday practice swimming. At least one full-time swimming instructor is required to return to normal swimming. But it is difficult to find, because other swimming pools, in Utrecht and beyond, are also looking for staff.
The shortage on the labor market increased sharply in the first quarter of this year. At the end of last year, there were still 106 vacancies for every hundred unemployed, but that number has now grown to 133. This is apparent from new figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS), presented on Tuesday.
More people will notice in everyday life that companies are struggling with staff shortages. The examples are numerous: Monday morning the Ketheltunnel – between Schiedam and Vlaardingen – had to be closed for a few hours. Two ‘operators’ had called in sick and Rijkswaterstaat was unable to find a replacement in time. Or take Ajax’s tribute last week. Due to a lack of security guards, the party could not take place on the Museumplein.
Also read: The staff shortages are back, so how do you bring in people?
The shortage of personnel affects the entire width of the labor market. At the end of March, there were 451,000 vacancies. That is 59,000 more than at the end of the fourth quarter last year. Most vacancies are open in healthcare, business services and trade. The ‘trade’ category includes work in distribution centers and in shops.
The demand for staff is also high in the hospitality industry. Since the reopening of the sector after the last lockdown, at the end of January, catering entrepreneurs have been looking for people for service and kitchen. Many catering staff left for work in other sectors during the corona crisis.
The vacancy rate, or the number of unfilled vacancies per thousand jobs, doubled in the hospitality industry to 112. Never before has a vacancy rate above 100 been measured in an industry, says Statistics Netherlands.
The sectors of financial services, ‘real estate rental and trading’ and agriculture and fisheries had the fewest vacancies in the past quarter.
Corona support
The extreme shortage is partly an incidental consequence of the corona crisis. Far fewer companies go bankrupt than usual. Due to the billions in corona support, so-called zombie companies have also continued to exist: companies that were actually not viable before the corona crisis, but were nevertheless able to survive due to the corona support.
This also left people in jobs that would otherwise have been available for other work. Peter Hein van Mulligen, chief economist at Statistics Netherlands: “The corona support measures have done a lot of good, but they also slow down the dynamics on the labor market.”
Now the support has been stopped and entrepreneurs have to pay their taxes after an earlier postponement. A bankruptcy wave is therefore expected later this year. Then staff will also be ‘free’ again. Van Mulligen expects that it will be easy for them to find a new job – after all, there are so many vacancies. “I can also imagine that thriving companies cannot wait for the weak brothers to go under.”
However, with the (provisional) end of the corona crisis, the labor market tightness will not just disappear. That is due to the aging population. More people are retiring than young people are joining. This will eventually lead to a shrinkage of the working population, unless many migrants come to the Netherlands.
Meanwhile, the number of positions continues to grow. Partly also because of the aging population. More people will soon need care, for example. And so there is also a need for people who can provide the extra care.
Statistics Netherlands says that the shortage on the labor market is already reflected in the type of contracts that employees are offered. New figures, also presented on Tuesday, show that the number of workers with a temporary contract with the prospect of a permanent contract has increased by 14 percent this quarter, compared to the same period last year. Providing more security is a way for employers to recruit and retain staff.
Wages also contain movement, which is also an employment condition for recruiting staff. After years of wage moderation, a wage wave now seems to have started. In April, employers and unions agreed on wage increases of an average of 3.4 percent per year in new collective bargaining agreements. This was recently revealed by figures from employers’ organization AWVN. Although this has reached the highest point since the financial crisis of 2008, wage growth still lags far behind the high inflation.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of 17 May 2022