Analytics, Employment, Estonia, Labour-market, Markets and Companies

In 2015, the number of job vacancies was the largest in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.

The rate of job vacancies, i.e. the share of job vacancies in the total number of jobs, was 1.2% in the 4th quarter of 2015, being 0.1 percentage points less than in the same quarter of 2014. The rate of job vacancies was the highest in financial and insurance activities (2.7%) and in the economic activity of information and communication (2.4%). The largest increase in the number of job vacancies was recorded in financial and insurance activities, where the number of job vacancies doubled compared to the 4th quarter of 2014.

The lowest rate of job vacancies (0.1%) was observed in three economic activities – in agriculture, forestry and fishing, in mining and quarrying and in construction.

The highest share of both vacant and occupied posts in the total number of posts was recorded in manufacturing (19%), wholesale and retail trade (16%) and education (10%).

57% of vacant and occupied posts were in Harju county (including Tallinn), followed by Tartu county (11%) and Ida-Viru county (8%). The rate of job vacancies was the highest in Harju county (including Tallinn) (1.6%) and the lowest in Hiiu county (0.2%).

71% of the job vacancies were in the private sector and 29% were in the public sector. The rate of job vacancies was 1.4% in the public sector and 1.2% in the private sector. The public sector includes companies owned by the state or local governments.

The movement of labour is characterised by labour turnover (the total of engaged employees and those who have left), which amounted to 88,000 employees in the 3rd quarter of 2015, denoting a decrease of 0.9% compared to the 3rd quarter of 2014, but a 14.4% increase compared to the previous quarter. In the 3rd quarter of 2015, the largest increase in labour turnover compared to the 3rd quarter of 2014 occurred in real estate activities (46.2%) and in information and communication (33.0%).

The data are based on the job vacancies and labour turnover survey, conducted by Statistics Estonia since 2005. In 2015, the sample included 12,376 enterprises, institutions and organisations; the data of randomly selected units are imputed to the total population separately in each stratum.

The number of job vacancies is the total number of job vacancies on the 15th day of the second month of the quarter. A job vacancy is a paid post that is newly created, unoccupied or becomes vacant when an employee leaves, and for which the employer is actively trying to find a suitable candidate from outside the enterprise, institution or organisation concerned.