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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

Month Year Index-Value
2018 June 4.8
July 4.9
August 4.8
September 4.5
October 4.6
November 4.8
December 4.7
2019 January 4.6
February 4.7
March 4.6
April 4.6
May 4.7
June 4.8
July 4.4
August 4.3
September 4.3
October 4.4
November 4.4
December 4.3
2020 January 4.3
February 4.3
March 3.9
April 2.9
May 2.9
June 3.0
July 2.8
August 2.9
September 2.7
October 3.0
November 2.9
December 2.9
2021 January 3.0
February 3.1
March 3.1
April 3.1
May 3.0
June 3.3
July 3.6
August 3.7
September 3.9
October 4.0
November 4.0
December 4.3
2022 January 4.5
February 4.5
March 4.5
April 4.4
May 4.9
June 4.9
July 4.8
August 5.0
September 4.8
October 4.8
November 4.8
December 5.1
2023 January 5.3
February 5.2
March 5.2
April 5.3
May 5.3
June 5.3
July 5.3
August 5.1
September 4.8
October 5.0
November 4.8
December 4.7
2024 January 4.8
February 4.7
March 4.8
April 4.9
May 4.6
June 4.9
July 4.7
August 4.6
September 4.2
October 4.2
November 4.1
December 4.3
2025 January 4.2
February 4.1
March 4.1
April 4.0
May 4.0
June 4.0

Period surveyed

June 2018 until June 2025

Date of publication

2025/5/26

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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)