OREANDA-NEWS. The job vacancy rate in both the euro area (EA19 ) and the EU28 was 1.7 % in the second quarter o f 2015 , stable compared with the previous quarter, but up from 1.6 % in the second quarter of 2014, according to figures published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

In the euro area, the job vacancy rate in the second quarter of 2015 was 1.2 % in industry and construction and 2.1 % in services. In the EU28 , the rate was 1.3 % in industry and construction and 2.1 % in services.

Member States

Among the Member States for which comparable data are available, the highest job vacancy rates in the second quarter of 2015 were recorded in Belgium and Germany ( both 2.7 %), the United Kingdom (2.5%) , the Czech Republic (2.3%) and Sweden (2.0%) , and the lowest in Latvia (0.5%) , Poland (0.6%) , Portugal (0.7%) and Spain (0.7% in the first quarter of 2015).

Among the Member Stat es for which data for the second quarter of 2015 are published , the job vacancy rate rose in twenty one, remained stable in three and fe ll in three compared to the second quarter of 2014. The largest increases were registered in the Czech Republic (+1.1 percentage points ), Croatia (+0.5 pp), Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands ( all +0.3 pp) . The only decreases were recorded in Germany and Greece (both - 0.1 pp) and Cyprus (- 0.2 pp).