Skill needs forecasts: job opportunities

Cedefop skill supply and demand forecasts provide comprehensive information on the future labour market trends in Europe. The forecasts act as an early warning mechanism to help to alleviate potential labour market imbalances and support different labour market actors in making informed decisions. Job opportunities represent the sum of net employment change and replacement demand. The concept of replacement demand is based on the fact that some jobs become available due to people leaving work places for different reasons (retirement, migration etc.) These vacant positions need to be filled. In practice the replacement needs are much higher than the net change of employment (expansion demand). As the distribution of those leaving the labour forces is difficult to estimate on the yearly basis, the replacement needs for the period 2013 – 2025 are provided.