Sales, marketing and development managers registered the highest job vacancy rate in the European Union in 2024, according to Eurostat, indicating the most significant recruitment challenges.

The vacancy rate for this occupation stood at 8.4 per cent, signifying the highest unmet labour demand and suggesting potential difficulties in finding staff.

The next occupations experiencing the highest vacancy rates were manufacturing labourers and other clerical support workers, both registering a rate of 7.3 per cent.

Other sales workers followed with a vacancy rate of 6.1 per cent, suggesting ongoing demand for these positions.

Artistic, cultural and culinary associate professionals also demonstrated high unmet demand, recording a vacancy rate of 6.0 per cent.

The statistical body also said that occupations in the public sector, such as healthcare workers and teachers, may also face recruitment difficulties, but are less likely to be advertised online, meaning they rank lower or are not featured in these data.

Conversely, IT professions might be over-represented in the data because online job advertisements are the primary source for the experimental statistics.