Cyprus records the EU’s largest annual decline in job vacancy rate
In Cyprus, the job vacancy rate fell to 2.6% in the second quarter of 2026, marking the largest annual decline among European Union countries. According to Cyprus Mail, citing Eurostat, the indicator decreased by 0.7 percentage points compared with the second quarter of 2025, when it stood at 3.3%.
Indicator dynamics in Cyprus
In the third quarter of 2025, Cyprus’s job vacancy rate was 3.0%, while in the fourth quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 it was 2.8%. In the second quarter of 2026, it declined by a further 0.2 percentage points.
Despite the annual decline, Cyprus’s figure remained above the EU and eurozone averages. In the European Union, the job vacancy rate in the second quarter of 2026 was 2.0%, while in the eurozone it was 2.1%. A year earlier, the gap between Cyprus and the eurozone average had reached 1.1 percentage points, while the gap with the EU average was 1.2 percentage points. By the second quarter of 2026, it had narrowed to 0.5 and 0.6 percentage points, respectively.
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Comparison with other EU countries
After Cyprus, the largest annual declines in the job vacancy rate were recorded in Belgium, down 0.6 percentage points; Austria, down 0.5; Estonia, down 0.4; and Italy, down 0.3. At the same time, the indicator increased by 0.3 percentage points in Slovenia, by 0.2 in Greece, and by 0.1 in Sweden.
The highest job vacancy rate in the EU was recorded in the Netherlands at 4.1%. It was followed by Belgium with 3.3%, Malta with 3.1%, and Austria with 2.9%. The lowest rate was recorded in Romania at 0.5%; it was 0.8% each in Poland and Bulgaria, and 0.9% each in Spain and Slovakia.
Vacancies by sector
Eurostat defines the job vacancy rate as the share of unfilled jobs in the total number of occupied and vacant posts. In the services sector, this indicator in the second quarter was higher than in industry and construction: 2.2% versus 2.0% in the eurozone and 2.1% versus 1.8% in the EU. Among economic activities, the highest rates were recorded in construction, at 3.0% in the eurozone and 2.8% in the EU.
