Which jobs are hardest and easiest to fill in Europe, and why?

Teaching, healthcare and IT jobs are among the hardest to fill across Europe, while employers generally find it easier to recruit labourers and food preparation assistants. But the pattern varies by country. Spain, for example, faces a large shortage of food preparation assistants, according to the OECD.These shortages persist even as young people face a tougher job market. The OECD found that the unemployment gap between young graduates and the wider working-age population has widened in the countries it analysed. The European Central Bank (ECB) also found that job prospects for young people in the eurozone have weakened since 2023.Among the EU countries covered by the OECD’s Mapping Skill Shortages in OECD Countries report, teaching ranks as the hardest occupation to fill on average, followed by health professionals and information and communications technology (ICT) professionals. Health associate professionals, such as medical technicians and some nursing staff, and business and administration professionals complete the top five.At the other end, labourers are the easiest to recruit, followed by elementary workers, food preparation assistants, sales workers and assemblers.The OECD’s index compares occupations within each country. Positive scores point to relative shortages and negative scores to relative surpluses. The scores show how hard jobs are to fill compared with other occupations in the same country. They do not count vacancies or missing workers.