Labour market information: Belgium

Located in the heart of Europe, Belgium is a federal state subdivided into Communities (Flemish Community, French Community, German-speaking Community) and Regions (Flemish Region, Brussels-Capital Region, Walloon Region). This means that, in Belgium, power and decisions are shared between the federal state and the federated entities. The purview and responsibilities of each government are defined and limited in the constitution. For example, employment and the labour market are matters entrusted to the governments of the regions and communities, which is why there are four public employment services in Belgium. The federal state remains responsible for labour law and wage policy.

Belgium is a small country (with a surface area of 30 688 km²) which is densely populated: as of 1 January 2023, Belgium had 11 697 557 inhabitants, of whom 57.9% lived in Flanders, 31.4% in Wallonia, 10.4% in the Brussels-Capital Region and less than 1% in the German-speaking Community.

Overall, the Belgian economy has proved resilient in the face of a series of shocks (COVID-19, floods, the energy crisis) despite tensions in the labour market and inflation higher than the euro area average. The unemployment rate is stable at 5.7%, and the employment rate has risen very slightly to 72.1%.

The vast majority of jobs in Belgium are in the services sector. The top 10 places are all occupied by service providers in the transport and communications, finance and distribution/retail sectors. The list includes bpost, the banks BNP Paribas Fortis, ING Belgium and KBC Bank, HR Rail, Colruyt Group, Proximus, Delhaize Group, Carrefour Belgium and Randstad. Belgium is home to only a small number of large industrial companies. One of them, the steel giant Arcelor Mittal, is mainly based in Wallonia. Ghent, in Flanders, is the base for the car manufacturer Volvo Cars, while Audi has a its base in the Brussels-Capital Region, in Forest. The pharmaceutical industry is also a flourishing sector in the Belgian economy and a major employer.

The Belgian economy is highly services-focused; the tertiary sector, which accounts for 68.8% of GDP, employs the largest number of workers and is the main provider of jobs. Commerce, transport and hospitality (hotels, restaurants and catering) cover the largest share of the employment market within that sector, followed by public administration, education and business services with a share of 19%. The most common occupations in Belgium are office workers in both the civil service and the private sector (general duties), shop assistants, domestic workers, cleaners in offices, hotels and other businesses, and teachers.

Many people in Belgium commute for work to a different region from that in which they live, or even to a neighbouring country. Most commuting is from Flanders and Wallonia to the Brussels-Capital Region, where there are more jobs than there are members of the region’s own economically active population. Belgium also has a large number of cross-border workers, commuting from Flanders to the Netherlands and from Wallonia to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

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The number of job vacancies is rising in all three regions. With 67.3% of all job vacancies in Belgium, the Flemish Region remains the part of the country which has the highest number of job vacancies. It is followed by the Walloon Region with 19.6 % and the Brussels-Capital Region with 13.07%.

More than three quarters of job vacancies are found in five economic sectors: the non-market sector, science and services, industry, commerce and construction.

The number of vacancies is higher in large and medium-sized companies than in small companies, although the vacancy rate is higher in small companies.

Similarly, more of the jobs being advertised are for permanent roles, but the vacancy rate is significantly higher for temporary roles.

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As regards the available workforce and the data on jobseekers, we refer you to the contributions from the various Regions and the public employment services.

At the beginning of 2023, Flanders had 6 774 807 inhabitants. The population continues to grow in Flanders as elsewhere (+6.1% compared to 2013 and +1.0% compared to 2022), with slightly more women (50.5%) than men (49.5%).

The age distribution is changing considerably as the population ages: there are just over 1 430 000 people aged 65 or over, which is 21.1% of the population (up from 18.9% in 2013). Since 2016, elderly people have outnumbered the under-18s, who make up 19.4% of the population. The working-age population (people in the 18-64 age bracket) numbers 4 030 000, which reflects an increase of 91 725 since 2013. Due to the consistently rapid growth of the economically active population (comprising workers and jobseekers), unemployment remains structurally high, even during a prolonged period of economic growth.

https://bestat.statbel.fgov.be/bestat/crosstable.xhtml?view=161080d2-d411-4e40-9a0f-a27db5e2b6e1

In Flanders in 2022, 76.7% of the population between the ages of 20 and 64 were in work, while only 2.9% of the economically active population were looking for work. 21% of people of working age are unemployed or economically inactive. They are mainly young people (students) and older people (early retirees). The Belgian ‘lemon-shaped’ curve, with a high level of employment among people aged between 25 and 54, and little employment among those aged under 25 or over 55, can be seen in Flanders too.

Youth unemployment in Flanders increased as a result of the coronavirus crisis, from 9.5% in 2019 to 11% in 2022, but it is well below the Belgian average. The number of young people leaving school without any qualifications has fallen sharply in recent years, still standing at 4.9% in 2022, the lowest level since this indicator was first measured.

In general terms, Flanders scores well within the European Union in terms of the main labour market indicators. However, a weak point is the very low rate of economic activity among groups categorised as disadvantaged. These comprise primarily people with low skills, of whom just over half are in work (51.3% of those aged 25 to 64 in 2022). However, the employment rate among people over 55 (54.9% of those aged 55 to 64 in 2022), immigrants (62.7% of people aged 20 to 64 and not born in one of the 28 EU countries in 2022) and disabled workers (46.5% of those aged 20 to 64 in 2022) is also much too low. There has, however, been a considerable increase in the number of people over 55 in work recently and, thanks to the steady rhythm of growth over the previous years, Flanders already met the target of 50% in 2020.

Since the number of available jobs is higher in Flanders than in the other regions, not very many Flemings work in Wallonia or abroad. It is the Brussels-Capital Region that attracts the most commuters from Flanders: nearly 9.1% of Flemings work in that region and 2.5% commute to Wallonia or abroad (figures for 2019).

The process of de-industrialisation in the last decade has not left Flanders untouched. A quarter of jobs in industry have been lost since the 1980s. Industry (including construction) no longer accounted for any more than 21% of total employment in 2020. As a result, there are hardly any industrial firms left among the major employers. Employing more than 7 000 people, Volvo Cars in Ghent is the largest industrial employer in Flanders. It is followed by AB InBev, the world’s largest beer brewer, which employs over 3 200 people in Belgium. Then there is Van Hool in Lier, the Belgian manufacturer of coaches and industrial vehicles, which employs more than 4 500 people in Flanders and Macedonia.

The main employers are service providers in the transport and communications sectors (SNCB, bpost and Belgacom), finance (the major banks) and distribution (major retailers such as Colruyt, Delhaize and Carrefour). The private services sector made up 47% of total employment in 2020, while public and subsidised services accounted for 31%.

Sectoral changes (the move from industry to services), technological advances and globalisation have also resulted in marked changes in the employment structure in terms of qualification levels. There are consistently more jobs that require highly qualified workers and, as a result, fewer where mid-level qualifications are sufficient. By 2021, highly skilled jobs already accounted for 49.5% of the total number of jobs in Flanders, mainly in management, academic or scientific positions in education, business services, ICT services and healthcare.

41.7% of jobs still require mid-level qualifications. Jobs have, above all, been lost among industrial production workers and clerical staff. The proportion of jobs where only low-level qualifications are required has fallen to 8.8%. These mainly comprise maintenance and cleaning roles, a sector that is growing as a result of the service voucher employment scheme.

Due to the coronavirus crisis, the number of job offers received by the VDAB, the Flemish public employment service, (in the normal course of business, excluding temporary agency work) fell sharply in the course of 2020. A fair recovery has been recorded since then, however, but a marked decline has been ongoing since autumn 2022 due to the economic downturn.

In June 2023, 30 019 vacancies were reported directly to the VDAB in the normal economic circuit, excluding temporary agency work [Dutch-language abbreviation: NECzU] (not including vacancies from recruitment and selection agencies). Although this is a high figure for June, it is still a 14% decrease compared with June 2022.

In the last 12 months (July 2022-June 2023), 349 617 vacancies were reported to the VDAB, 14% fewer than in the previous 12 months – a good performance in light of the fairly low growth figures and uncertain economic conditions.

A large number of sectors recorded a significant drop in vacancies in the last 12 months compared with the previous year. The largest declines have been in the industrial sectors, such as metallurgy, food and drinks, chemicals and textiles. In contrast, the construction industry is holding up well, with a very limited decline.

There have also been significant losses in the private services sectors, including wholesale and retail trade, transport, logistics and postal services, and catering and tourism. Only the financial sector saw a sharp increase, while the vast IT, media and telecommunications sector remained stable.

Finally, all major subsidised sectors, such as public services, education, healthcare and social services, recorded a decrease in the number of vacancies.

It appears that coronavirus has done little to alter the structural inadequacy of the labour market. It is difficult to predict what effects the current crises will have on future recruitment, but for the time being, the tensions in the labour market certainly seem undiminished.

The VDAB’s annual survey on occupations with labour shortages shows that it is very difficult to predict the extent to which the recruitment market will be able to absorb the consequences, temporarily or structurally, of economic uncertainty. More jobs were added to the list of occupations with labour shortages in 2022.

The occupations where labour has classically been in short supply remained so in 2022. Care, construction, technology and IT are still registering large numbers of shortage occupations. Finding technical staff remains a challenge for many employers. Shortages are also causing major problems in the health and social care sectors. In addition to these ‘givens’, there were a number of new occupations with labour shortages in 2022; the reason for this seems to be rooted in the significant gap between employers’ and candidates’ expectations.

Nursing staff are still the most difficult to find, even after the public health crisis. Finding technical staff also remains difficult for many employers. Half of the top 10 shortage occupations are technical positions, such as industrial plant technician, construction site manager/supervisor and maintenance mechanic. The rest of the top 10 are ‘classic’ shortage occupations, including HGV drivers and fruit growing workers. Domestic cleaners and accountants have also been in short supply for years.

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At the end of June 2023, there were 192 853 unemployed jobseekers in Flanders, up 11.6% on the previous year. The current figure is even lower than that of June 2019 (before coronavirus), when the VDAB counted 197 277 unemployed jobseekers. These figures refer only to unemployed jobseekers, not to those temporarily laid off.

Despite a considerable degree of economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, many jobs have been lost, particularly in industry and construction, which is clearly reflected in the unemployment figures. In Flanders, salespeople (27 900) as well as production workers in various sectors (30 400) were chief among those looking for work in June 2023. Other major occupational groups with high unemployment rates are warehouse workers, loaders/unloaders and packers (22 200), general clerical workers (19 600), cleaning and maintenance staff (22 600), construction workers and technicians (11 700), hospitality workers (17 300), specialised clerical workers (13 000) and drivers (10 500).

This list shows that there is a very large pool of labour in certain low-skilled occupational groups, particularly in the logistics, sales, hospitality, cleaning and transport sectors.

However, there are also reserves of labour, albeit generally on a much smaller scale, among (highly) qualified occupational groups. Examples include computer scientists and ICT workers (4 400 jobseekers), managers (6 800), technical managers (1 900), knowledge management and communications specialists (2 700), and nursing and care staff (7 900). Although there are several thousand jobseekers, that reserve is often insufficient to fill the numerous vacancies in growth sectors where recruitment is highly dynamic. This is the case, for instance, for ICT occupations and nursing staff, where the shortages are greatest. In addition, not all jobseekers are eligible for the vacancies that exist, because their profiles do not always match the requirements of the job.

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In 2021, the Brussels-Capital Region registered 795 647 jobs in its territory (an increase of +5.5% compared with 2020). The capital is thus the country’s principal area of employment. Brussels is very attractive to jobseekers. Many of those jobs are not held by Brussels residents. In fact, in 2021, only 49.4% of them were held by people living in Brussels, with the other 50.6% commuting from Flanders (32.6%) or Wallonia (18.1%). Conversely, 76 435 residents of Brussels, or 16.2% of its population, work outside the capital (69% of them in Flanders and 31.1% in Wallonia).

The Brussels-Capital Region is also characterised by rather unusual demographics. Of the three regions in Belgium, the population of the Brussels-Capital Region is growing most rapidly. This demographic dynamic is both a challenge for the region and an asset for the future of the Brussels economy in light of the ageing European population.

Moreover, the presence of international institutions (the European Union, NATO, etc.) and Brussels’ status as the capital city (and consequently chief point of entry for international migration) have attracted workers not only from all corners of Europe but also from third countries. This has made Brussels even more cosmopolitan. It now has a large concentration of foreign nationals (more than 70% of its residents being of foreign extraction).

The Brussels economy is heavily dominated by the services sector (91% of total employment). In the Brussels-Capital Region, the employment structure based on sector of activity shows that 14.7% of posts are in public administration, followed by healthcare and social work with 11%, teaching with 9%, commerce with 7.7%, and clerical and support services with 7.5%. These five sectors together account for 49.9% of paid employment in Brussels. In addition, the presence of international institutions, and more particularly the European Union, brings with it a large number of businesses that support those institutions.

Employment in Brussels is characterised by the generally high levels of educational achievement required. In 2021, 65.2% of jobs in Brussels were held by highly qualified personnel (higher education level, university or otherwise), as against approximately 47% for Belgium as a whole.

Paradoxically, and like many large urban centres, although it is one of the richest in Europe (in terms of GDP), the Brussels-Capital Region is at the same time hit by high unemployment and poverty rates. The unemployment rate is higher than in the other two regions and higher than the European average.

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Employment opportunities by sector of activity

The most well-represented sectors of activity among the 67 911 job offers received by Actiris over the last 12 months (September 2023):

• Clerical and support services: 35.4%
• Public administration and defence: 13.5%
• Human health and social work: 9.6%
• Specialised, scientific and technical activities: 6.8%
• Education: 6.1%
• Transport and storage: 5.4%
• Wholesale and retail trade: 4.8%
• Hospitality: 4.5%
• Personal services (agencies and other): 2.9%
• Construction: 2.8%
• Other sectors: 8.0 %

It should be noted, however, that Actiris only receives some of the job vacancies in the Brussels area and, even though these do make it possible to capture volumes and trends, they do not reflect the entire demand for labour of Brussels businesses.

view.brussels maintains an inventory of occupations in which vacancies are difficult to fill – so-called ‘problem’ posts – and analyses the factors underlying these constraints in the Brussels labour market.

In 2022, 1 082 problem posts were identified in the Brussels-Capital Region, across a number of sectors.

The list and analysis (2021) of the problem posts identified in 2022 are available here:

• https://www.actiris.brussels/media/1gnbvg0c/2023-06-liste-fc_compressed-h-900E4A7F.pdf
• https://www.actiris.brussels/media/2kvdeo44/2022-12-view-brussels-les-fonctions-critiques_compressed-h-04952FA6.pdf

For more information:

• https://www.actiris.brussels/fr/citoyens/view-brussels/
• https://www.actiris.brussels/fr/citoyens/metiers-et-secteurs-imt-b/

The structure of the Brussels economy is primarily services-oriented and therefore offers better prospects for personnel in that sector.

Jobseekers with low levels of qualifications have greater difficulty finding jobs in the Brussels-Capital Region, particularly if their knowledge of languages is limited. The region is effectively bilingual, and workers are expected to have a high level of language skills. Moreover, it is not uncommon that a knowledge of English is also required, since Brussels is the seat of major international institutions (NATO, European Union, etc.).

In late September 2023, Brussels recorded 91 088 jobseekers, equating to an unemployment rate of 15.0%.

The following table shows the sectors with the most jobseekers.

The highest percentages are thus found in the clerical work, security, cleaning, and environmental services sectors, and in transport, storage, packaging, etc.

These three fields together account for 40% of the jobseekers registered with Actiris.

The favourable trend in the labour market observed in 2022 did not continue into 2023, particularly in Wallonia, where the two main labour market indicators are looking less good and are outside the European average. At the end of the second quarter of 2023, the unemployment rate in the French-speaking Walloon Region was 8.8%, and the employment rate was 65%.

Most jobs in Wallonia, more than 85%, are salaried positions. At the end of June 2023, 1 212 576 people living in Wallonia had paid employment in Belgium. The sectors that provide the most employment are public administration, teaching, healthcare and social work, retail and wholesale trade, construction and transport.

Wallonia is also distinguished by greater cross-border mobility than the other two regions. 69% of Belgium’s outgoing cross-border workers live in Wallonia. On 30 June 2022, Wallonia had 60 985 cross-border workers, of whom 76% (47 497) worked in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 12% (7 222) in France and 10% (6 290) in Germany.

At the end of December 2021, 90 601 companies with at least one employee were established in Wallonia. 25% of them are located in the cities of Liège, Charleroi, Namur, Mons, Tournai and La Louvière. The vast majority (88.5%) employ fewer than 20 workers. Only 2% of these companies employ more than 100 people.

36.8% of the companies employing fewer than 20 staff operate in the commerce and hospitality sectors. Companies with 20 or more employees mainly operate in the public sector. Smaller, local businesses tend to operate in agriculture, construction and other services, while larger companies are well represented in industry.

It should be noted that Wallonia is a world leader in the following sectors: steel industry, metal construction, hydraulics, glassware and industrial chemistry. Alongside this, a new generation of businesses is emerging, focused on high-value-added sectors and benefiting from the support of private or university research centres and intensive R&D activity. In Wallonia, six sectors are structured as competitiveness clusters as part of the regional economic development plan:

• Aeronautics and space (Skywin)
• Life sciences (Biowin)
• Transport and logistics (Logistics in Wallonia)
• Agribusiness (Wagralim)
• Precision mechanics and nanotechnology (Mecatech)
• Green chemistry and sustainable materials (Greenwin)

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During the second quarter of 2023, Le Forem, the Walloon public employment service, published some 102 262 vacancies. The largest share of those vacancies was in the business services, healthcare and social work, public administration, construction and manufacturing sectors.

Despite a significant labour pool (some 207 204 unemployed jobseekers in Wallonia at the end of June 2023), some companies find it hard to fill vacancies for certain occupations or roles. Since 1999, Le Forem has published an analysis of vacancies, on the basis of which it has drawn up a list of ‘problem roles’ and occupations with labour shortages (insufficient labour available) for which it is difficult to recruit. The 2023 list (based on 2022 data) comprises 158 occupations that are subject to recruitment pressures:66 problem roles which employers find hard to fill and 92 shortage occupations characterised by a lack of applicants.

The construction sector remains the most well represented, with 56 occupations on the list.

Several roles suffer from more structural recruitment difficulties, in the sense that the challenges are perennial. In some of those roles, there is currently a large proportion of people about to retire for whom replacements may not be found in the coming years. In fact, for 44** of the 158 roles on the list, at least 30% of workers are aged 50 or over. This is notably the case for HGV drivers, nurses and roofers.

https://www.leforem.be/documents/chiffres-et-analyses/analyse-liste2023-fonctions-critiques.pdf

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At the end of June 2023, Wallonia had 207 204 unemployed jobseekers. Of those unemployed jobseekers, 52% were men and 48% were women; 18% were under 25 and 25% were over 50. 43% had not completed the last 2 years of secondary education.

Geographically, demand for work is strongest in the Liège and Hainaut areas. The number of jobseekers is lowest in Walloon Brabant and the province of Luxembourg.

Demand for work is highest in the tertiary (commerce, real estate and business services, hotels and restaurants) and quaternary (healthcare and social work, collective, social and personal services, education) sectors.

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On 1 January 2020, the German-speaking Community had 77 949 inhabitants in a territory of 853 65 km² within Belgium’s Eastern Cantons (whence the German name ‘Ostbelgien’). At present, the under-20s and the over-70s each account for a fifth of the population. According to the latest forecasts, the total population will increase only slightly (+2.1%) by 2030 and will actually start to decrease from 2029.

The expression ‘economically active population’ refers to all people aged between 15 and 64 who are working or looking for work. In 2017 (latest available figures), the economically active population numbered 33 955 people, 31 393 of whom were employees or self-employed.

In 2009 and 2010, the economic crisis led to a sharp rise in unemployment of around 13.05%, and it was not until 2015 that a significant fall of 5.22% was recorded. Since then, unemployment has been declining steadily. Men and women, people aged under 25 or over 50, long-term jobseekers and low-skilled people have all benefited from a fall in the level of unemployment, which is now hovering around 7%. The number of jobseekers from non-EU countries increased by 3.9% over the same period.

The over-50s have been particularly hard hit by unemployment, accounting for one in three jobseekers. In the space of 14 years, their numbers have quadrupled. However, in 2017, 92% of the economically active population over the age of 50 were in employment.

At 10.6%, the unemployment rate among young people (<25 years) in the German-speaking Community is relatively low compared with the Belgian average (15.8%).

At the end of April 2021, slightly more than half of jobseekers held a secondary school level qualification, while almost one in five had attained only a certificate of primary education. At 8%, the number of jobseekers who had successfully completed a ‘dual apprenticeship’ (combined apprenticeship and studies) was almost on a par with the number of people with an upper-secondary education qualification obtained from a college or university (13%). Low-skilled young people make up an ever larger proportion of jobseekers, while the number of highly qualified young people looking for work is falling steadily.

Since 2009, there have been more jobseekers with a upper-secondary school qualification than with only a certificate of primary education. While this is an indicator of society’s higher level of education, it also demonstrates that the minimum level of qualification required to get a job has changed.

Because many of its residents are bilingual and thanks to its favourable geographical situation – close to the French Community, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – the German-speaking Community has many commuters. The number of Belgians commuting to work in Luxembourg continues to rise, reaching 4 080 in 2018. In contrast, the number of Belgian residents working in Germany has been falling since 2007, when 6 684 people used to commute across the border each day. By 2019, that figure had fallen to 5 888.

According to the latest figures (from 2018), 2 243 employers currently employ 22 683 workers in the German-speaking Community. The largest numbers of employees are to be found in the manufacturing (22%), health and social care (14%), trade (13%), education (11%), and communications and financial services (11%) sectors.

Overall, the balance sheet for businesses remained positive (+7.2%) between 2008 and 2018.

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The list of training courses for occupations with labour shortages in the German-speaking Community for the years 2020 and 2021 included the following occupations:

engineer, nurse, care assistant, secondary school teacher (lower and upper levels), primary school teacher, technical draughtsperson, technician (graduate level), accountant, social worker, teacher (A1), IT technician, administrative manager, secretary or general office staff, wages clerk, transport agent, driver, machinery operator, turner, locksmith, technician/mechanic, heating and sanitation fitter, welder, electrician, electrical engineer, carpenter, joiner, painter and decorator, bricklayer and tiler, roofer, baker, butcher, construction machinery operator, chef and kitchen staff, restaurant staff

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Much of the available workforce in 2015 were seeking jobs in commerce or repair work (11%). 8% of jobseekers had worked in the medical, veterinary or social field, and another 8% in public or private services. People who had worked in the construction industry accounted for 6% of the total number of jobseekers, closely followed by those in telecommunications and transport (5%) and real estate, renting and business services (5%). Finally, similar numbers of jobseekers had worked in the hospitality sector (5%) or in public administration, defence or social security (5%).

In 2018, 2 out of every 10 jobseekers were looking for manual work, while 14% were looking for a job in sales or in an office. 8% of jobseekers wanted to work in cleaning services or hospitality, while 1 in 20 were looking for a career in health or personal care.

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