Job trends: Why are Italy and Spain hiring while the UK, Germany, and France slow?

Euronews

01-03-2025

As of early 2025, job postings are increasing in Italy and Spain among Europe's five largest economies, while the UK, Germany, and France are experiencing declines. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, Italy and Spain have shown the strongest increase, whereas job postings in the UK remain below February 2020 levels.
According to data from the hiring platform Indeed, job postings in Italy and Spain rose by 9% and 4%, respectively, on a seasonally adjusted basis in the three months leading up to February 14, 2025. In contrast, job postings declined in France (4%), Germany (2%), and the UK (2%) over the same period.
Examining these trends over the past six months and since the start of 2025 (as of 14 February), a similar pattern emerges, despite variations in the figures. One constant remains: job postings in Spain and Italy continue to rise, while Germany, the UK, and France show a downward trend.
"Italy and Spain are bucking the continued slowdown in hiring that we're seeing in many large European economies. Rising job posting levels are a positive sign for these labour markets," Pawel Adrjan, Director of Economic Research at Indeed, told Euronews Business.
What's behind these trends?
As to the possible reasons for these trends, Pawel Adrjan explained that Italy and Spain have benefitted from the Next Generation EU funds and from growth in service exports, with Spain's GDP growth additionally getting a boost from population growth through immigration. While employment and GDP growth in Italy slowed in 2024, hiring is benefitting from a moderate growth outlook for 2025 driven by household consumption and potential for a further boost from the EU funds.
"Both labour markets remain tighter than historically", he added.
Which sectors are driving the growth?
According to Indeed, the two occupational categories that contributed the most to the rise in job postings in Italy and Spain in the three months to 14 February 2025 were Food Preparation & Service and Software Development.
As to the declining trends in the other three countries, Adrjan said: "Structural headwinds, such as stagnant manufacturing and economic uncertainty, have slowed hiring in the UK, Germany, and France."
What are the expectations for 2025 in these countries?
Rising job postings suggest that employment will continue to rise in Italy and Spain in 2025 unless there is any negative impact from geopolitical and trade tensions that might impact the EU economy according to Adrjan.
"Both labour markets remain tight, as measured by the ratio of job vacancies to unemployment, leading to solid wage growth that keeps attracting people to the labour market", he said.
In contrast, the UK, Germany and France are likely to experience little job growth if broader economic growth does not pick up significantly.
"In fact, tax data from the UK shows that payroll employment is down in the past six months, despite the latest reading from January pointing to a partial recovery", Pawel Adrjan noted.
The UK stands out as an outlier compared to early 2020
Among the five countries, the UK stands out as an outlier compared to the pre-pandemic benchmark of 1February, 2020, when job postings were indexed at 100. As of mid-February 2025, the UK is the only country where this index remains below 100, standing at 85.1, indicating a decline compared to five years ago.
"Because employers have been cautious for some time amid lingering economic uncertainty, high interest rates, and weak GDP growth. This has been especially pronounced in higher-skilled, professional occupations", Adrjan said, explaining this trend.
According to him, while the fall in the job postings index below its pre-pandemic level predates the latest Autumn Budget, the announced increases in firms' costs related to national insurance and minimum wages further increased caution among employers with respect to hiring for 2025.
Job postings in Italy and Spain are 78% and 52% above their pre-pandemic levels, respectively. In this period, France has seen a 29% increase, while Germany is up by 26%.
Online job postings have become an increasingly important indicator for analysing job market trends, particularly for real-time insights. Some statistics offices, including the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS), have begun using online job advertisement indices as part of their experimental statistics.
Actual employment rates
On the other hand, Italy (67.4%) and Spain (71.4%) recorded the lowest employment rates among these countries in the third quarter of 2024, according to Eurostat and the ONS.
Germany (81.2) had the highest employment rate, followed by France (75.3%) and the UK (74.9%).
Of course, while this is a different indicator than job postings and the latest available data is from the third quarter of 2024, it still provides valuable insight into overall employment trends.