The Flemish employment agency VDAB received 21,077 directly reported job vacancies in September, 18% fewer than in the same month last year as it said that weakening labour markets continue.
Vacancies also declined through recruitment and selection agencies and in temporary agency work, falling by 2% and 8% respectively compared with September last year.
Related News
- Here's how much you could be earning as a freelancer in Belgium
- EU Parliament approves €6.91m fund to help redundant workers in three nations
- Over 100,000 people now looking for work in Brussels
The employment agency recorded particularly sharp drops in vacancies in the manufacture of machinery and equipment, the manufacture of transport equipment, and financial services. In each of those sectors, vacancy numbers were about a quarter lower than a year earlier.
By contrast, the extraction and harvest of raw resources such as agriculture and mining saw a strong increase of 28%. Other services also posted growth, with vacancies up 11%.
Over the past 12 months, the number of vacancies reported directly to VDAB reached 237,953. That was 14% lower than in the period from October 2024 to September 2025.
The biggest falls over that 12-month period came from businesses in professional services and social services, where vacancies dropped by 22% and 21% respectively. Education also recorded fewer vacancies, down 9%.
Looking at the full year, labour demand through recruitment and selection agencies was broadly stable. Demand for temporary workers, however, fell more sharply than the vacancies received directly by VDAB, declining by 19%.
