More than 75 percent of Dutch entrepreneurs suffered from staff shortages at the beginning of the third quarter. That reports the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Thursday. The shortages are slightly smaller than last year, when 84 percent of entrepreneurs said they could not find enough suitable employees. For 40 percent of entrepreneurs, staff shortages are the biggest obstacle in their business operations. Entrepreneurs in the hotel and catering industry, business services and the transport and storage sector in particular experience the tight labor market as a major problem.
In the so-called business survey, which Statistics Netherlands conducts on behalf of the European Commission, companies mainly point to the limited number of job seekers and the lack of qualified people as the reason for the shortages. Workers seem more likely to choose work outside their own sector. In addition, 10 percent of entrepreneurs indicate that job seekers set higher requirements than what the company can or wants to offer. This is most often the case in the information and communication sector and in the culture, sport and recreation sector.
Higher work pressure among employees is the most important consequence of the staff shortages, according to more than a third of the entrepreneurs. In the second quarter of 2023, there were 122 job openings for every 100 unemployed, according to Previous research from CBS. Although staff shortages seem to be decreasing somewhat according to the latest research, they are still well above the levels of a few years ago. In the third quarter of 2019 only a quarter of companies are experiencing labor shortages.
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