Job openings and recruitment needs, fourth quarter 2025
Job openings continues to decrease
Statistical news from Statistics Sweden 2026-02-27 8.00
In the fourth quarter of 2025, the number of job openings continues to decrease compared to the same quarter last year. There were 114 700 job openings in total on the labour market. Of these, 91 200 were advertised while 23 500 were job openings where the employer tried to recruit in other ways.
The number of job openings which the employer wished to be filled immediately were 78 200 while the number of job vacancies (job openings excluding substitutes) were 98 300.
Of the total number of job openings, 88 900 were in the business sector. In public administration, there were 22 800 job openings, of which 5 000 were in central government and 11 500 respectively 6 300 in municipalities and county councils.
Human health and social work establishments is the industry with the largest number of job openings due to its size. Relative to the number of employees within each industry, most job openings were found within administrative and support service companies.
From a regional perspective, more than 50 percent of job openings were located in the big city areas of Stockholm, Västra Götaland and Skåne. However, Västernorrlands county had the largest number of job openings per employment.
Number of job openings, per employment by county
Definitions and explanations
Job openings and recruitment needs is a new survey which has replaced the surveys Job openings and unmet labour demand, Labour market tendency survey and the Labour market outlook survey. Job openings and recruitment needs will report statistics on job openings, recruitment problems and skills needs. The statistics is used to analyse the economy and make forecasts about the economic situation, and it is part of the European Labour Market statistics on Businesses.
There are some substantial discrepancies between the design of Job openings and recruitment needs and that of Job openings and unmet labour demand, which was the base for official statistics regarding job vacancies up until the first quarter of 2024. Therefore, it is advised to take precaution in comparison over time.
Seasonally adjusted values are initially available for the total number of job openings and is presented together with the unadjusted time series for the total number of job openings in the same table.
Since the statistics is based on a sample survey, it is associated with some selection bias. Therefore, the margin of error obtaining to each statistical value is presented as well.