Average hiring time for skilled employees for SMEs in Europe 2023

As of 2023, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the European Union were - on average - able to hire appropriately skilled employees for open positions in less than three months, according to 38.9 percent of SMEs surveyed. A slightly smaller share of respondents - 37.9 percent - reported the average length of a hiring process taking between three and twelve months, while more than 10 percent said the process took longer than a year. Skills and labor shortages in Europe have been a persistent challenge for businesses during the 2020s, as the unemployment rate in the EU is at a record low, with the job vacancy rate rising to a record high during 2022, before declining slightly in 2023.