Approximately 3,500 (±1,100) jobs were vacant in the first quarter of 2021 according to the results of Statistics Iceland’s Job Vacancy Survey. At the same time the number of occupied jobs on the Icelandic labour market was estimated to be 175,700 (±11,900) resulting in a 1.9% (±0.6) job vacancy rate.
Comparison with 2020 shows that there were 700 more vacant jobs in the first quarter of 2021 than at the same period in 2020. The number of occupied jobs decreased by 29,800 between years and the job vacancy rate increased by 0.6 percentage points. Compared with the fourth quarter of 2020, the number of vacant jobs increased by 700 and the number of occupied jobs decreased by 28,200. The job vacancy rate increased by 0.6 percentage points between quarters.
| Job Vacancy Survey results from first quarter 2021 | ||||
| Measure | Value1 | Standard error2 | Lower interval3 | Upper interval3 |
| Number of vacant jobs | 3,500 | 600 | 2,300 | 4,600 |
| Number of occupied jobs | 175,700 | 6,100 | 163,800 | 187,600 |
| Job vacancy rate | 1.9 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 2.5 |
1 Numbers are rounded to the nearest hundred.
2 Standard error of a measure refers to the variance in measures between samples.
3 The upper and lower interval of a measure refers to the range of the confidence interval around the measure. In repeated samples, the population value will fall within the confidence interval in 95% of cases.
About the data
The Icelandic Job Vacancy Survey is a sample survey, performed quarterly amongst legal entities in Iceland. The population consists of all legal entities in the Iceland with more than one employee. The sample is constructed once every year, in the beginning of the year, from a sampling frame listing all legal entities in the year before. The reference date for the first quarter of 2021 was 15 February and the response rate 93%.
The results are provisional and can change with improved population information. When interpreting the results, it´s important to keep in mind that they are built on a sample survey and that the estimated number of occupied jobs is a point estimate at a given reference period. Therefore, the results should be interpreted taking the confidence intervals into consideration.