Beginning in the third quarter of 2013, the Quarterly Labour Cost Survey (QLCS) will include a new section for compiling the Vacancy Statistics (VS), which is compulsory, as it is governed by European Parliament and Council Regulation 453/2008. Up until the fourth quarter of 2012, the VS were obtained using the Short-Term Labour Survey (prepared by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security).

A vacancy or job opening is understood to be that post which either has been created recently, or is not held, or is about to become vacant, and for which the businessperson is taking active measures for the purpose of finding an ideal candidate outside of the company.

In part, job openings reflect the unmet demand for labour, as well as the possible imbalances between the ability and the availability of unemployed persons and workers sought by employers.

Moreover, this has included some additional questions, for the purpose of analysing the causes of the existence or lack of vacancies:

• In the event that the unit selected has answered that it does not have vacancies, it is asked the reason for this, selecting from among the following: it does not need any more workers; high hiring costs; lack of applicants meeting the requirements; other reasons.
• §there were also vacancies the previous quarter, the unit is asked about the reason why it has not been able to cover those existing vacancies: lack of applicants meeting the requirements; the applicants have not accepted the economic conditions; the applications have not accepted other conditions; other reasons. The reason for this question is to assess the difficulty in covering vacancies over time.