The new survey Job openings and recruitment needs makes it possible to describe skill shortages in the Swedish labour market in greater detail than before. Third quarter 2024 the employers reported a total shortage of 70 000 people in various occupations. There was a shortage in several fields, such as data, technology and health care, and in both academic and vocational occupations.

– For the first time we can publish official statistics on the labour shortage per occupation, says Katja Olofsson, labour market statistician at Statistics Sweden.

Recruitment needs for vocational occupations

Employers experienced labour shortage for several of the occupations that are trained in the vocational programs of the Swedish upper secondary school. This included personal care workers in health care, building and construction workers, machinery mechanics and fitters, and cooks and cold-buffet managers. Employers also had difficulty finding heating and air conditioning mechanics in the last six months. On the other hand, it had been easier to recruit building caretakers, assemblers, and process and machine operators.

Difficult finding specialist nurses, specialist physicians och recreation instructors

There was a labour shortage within many occupational fields. Within health care, the employers reported that they apart from 3 500 assistant nurses also had a shortage of

• 1 400 physicians, of which 1 300 specialist physicians
• 2 400 nurses, of which 900 specialist nurses.

Within the healthcare sector, the biggest difficulty was recruiting specialist physicians, radiology nurses as well as specialist nurses in psychiatry, anaesthesia, ambulance care, intensive care, and surgery. Within these occupations, more than half of the employers most often failed to recruit staff with the right qualifications.

In the field of data and IT the employers reported a shortage of 4 700 people in occupations that require extended post-secondary education, primarily software och system developers. However, over the past six months, nine out of ten employers who tried to recruit within this occupational group “always” or “often” succeeded in finding staff.

The field of technology were lacking 5 000 engineers and technicians, mainly within electronics and mechanical engineering. Despite this, a majority of employers over the past six months had “always” or “often” succeeded in recruiting engineers and technicians with the right qualifications.

In the field of education, there was a total shortage of 3 800 teachers. Out of these

• 1 100 were primary school teachers
• 1 000 preschool teachers
• 900 recreation instructors
• 400 special teachers and special needs teachers.

Schools experienced the biggest difficulty when recruiting recreation instructors. However, a majority of employers had “always” or “'often” succeeded in recruiting teachers for preschool class and lower primary school.

Half of employers experienced recruitment problems in the past six months

Of all employers in the past six months:

• 51 percent had experienced recruitment problems.
• 24 percent had not experienced recruitment problems.
• 25 percent had not recruited or attempted to recruit at all, or had not progressed far enough in the recruitment process to experience problems.

Too few or no applicants with sufficient professional experience or adequate education were the most common recruitment problems. Just over 60 percent of employers had experienced these problems. The third most common problem that 38 percent had experienced was that applicants demanded higher salaries than the employer had planned for.

Three out of four employers who had experienced recruitment problems had taken actions to increase their chances of recruiting. The most common actions were to extend the recruitment period and to lower or change the experience requirements, 58 and 25 percent, respectively.

The fact that employers fail to recruit the number of staff they wanted can be an indicator of a labour shortage. In the past six months, 39 percent of employers had not succeeded in recruiting the requested number, while 61 percent had succeeded.

As a consequence of not having succeeded in recruiting the number of staff wanted, 50 percent of employers chose to have current staff work more, or to make reorganizations.

Regarding the recruitment needs for the coming year, the employers’ recruitment plans were as follows:

• 29 percent expected an increase in the total number of employees at the local unit.
• 13 percent expected a decrease.
• 34 percent of employers did not expect any change in the number of employees.
• 24 percent were unable to assess their recruitment plans.

2025-05-27, at 08:00.