In total 7,550 jobs were vacant in the Icelandic labour market in the first quarter of 2023 according to Statistics Iceland’s Job Vacancy Survey. At the same time, the number of occupied jobs was around 221,700 and the job vacancy rate therefore 3.3% (see confidence intervals in table). In comparison, an average of 8,400 persons were unemployed in the first quarter of 2023, or around 3.8% of the total workforce aged 16-74. Comparison with the first quarter of 2022 shows that the number of vacancies increased by 120 between years and the vacancy rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points.
The demand for employees was highest in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries industries. The number of vacant jobs in the industry was 390 in total and the job vacancy rate 6.3%. The number of vacant jobs increased by 310 between years and the job vacancy rate increased by 4.9 percentage points. The demand for employees was also high in the construction industry where vacant jobs were 950 in total and the job vacancy rate 5.6%. The number of vacant jobs in the industry did, however, decrease considerably between years or by 240 jobs and the vacancy rate decreased by 2.1 percentage points.
About the data
The Icelandic Job Vacancy Survey is a sample survey, performed quarterly amongst legal entities in Iceland. The population consists of all legal entities in Iceland with more than one employee at the reference date of the survey. The sample is selected once every year, at the beginning of the year, from a sampling frame listing all legal entities in the year before based on Statistics Icelands‘ enterprise registry. The reference date for the first quarter of 2023 was 15 February, 573 responded and the response rate was 95%.
Information about the number of occupied jobs comes from register data which is constantly revised and updated. To minimisze changes to the time-series, figures about occupied jobs are fixed when twelve months have passed from the reference period of the results. Statistics Iceland intends to revise the figures every three years if significant changes are visible in older figures.
When interpreting the results of vacant jobs and the job vacancy rate, it is important to keep in mind that they are built on a sample survey at a given reference period. Therefore, the results should be interpreted by taking the 95% confidence intervals into consideration.