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IAB Labour Shortage Index

In addition to unemployment and employment trends, employment agencies in the survey also estimate the extent to which limited available labor makes it difficult to fill job openings in their agency district.  The following response options are converted to a metric system:

  • No, not significantly
  • Yes, to a limited extent
  • Yes, to a greater extent
  • Yes, to a significant extent

The mean of all responses forms the labor shortage index. It is defined on a scale of 0 to 10, with higher values signaling greater labor shortages in the job filling process.

Data Table

YearMonthIndex-Value
2018June4.9
July4.9
August4.8
September4.7
October4.7
November4.9
December4.9
2019January4.8
February4.7
March4.7
April4.6
May4.8
June4.7
July4.5
August4.3
September4.3
October4.4
November4.4
December4.4
2020January4.4
February4.3
March4
April3
May3
June3.1
July2.9
August3.2
September2.9
October3.1
November3.1
December3.1
2021January3.1
February3.1
March3.2
April3.2
May3.2
June3.4
July3.7
August3.9
September4.1
October4.2
November4.5
December4.4
2022January4.5
February4.6
March4.6
April4.6
May5
June5.1
July4.9
August5.2
September4.9
October4.9
November4.9
December5.1
2023January5.2
February5.3
March5.3
April5.3
May5.3
June5.3
July5.2
August5.2
September4.8
October4.9
November4.9
December4.8
2024January4.8
February4.7
March4.8
April4.9
May4.7
June4.9
July4.6
August4.5
September4.4
October4.3

Period surveyed

June 2018 until October 2024

Date of publication

2024/10/28

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Rights of use

The data on the IAB Labour Shortage Index are published under the following Creative Commons license: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)