There is a genuinely puzzling situation that occurs in labour markets: plenty of advertised vacancies, plenty of people looking for work, and far fewer hires than either number suggests. Economists call this a matching problem, and it has identifiable causes.
The economists' picture: the Beveridge curve
Normally, vacancies and unemployment move in opposite directions - lots of vacancies means low unemployment. Plot them against each other over decades and you get a downward-sloping curve.
When that curve shifts outwards - more vacancies coexisting with the same unemployment - it signals that matching has become less efficient. The jobs and the people both exist; they are not connecting. That shift is the formal version of "openings but no hires", and it has been observed in several developed economies in recent years.
The five causes of poor matching
1. Skills mismatch. The vacancies are for cyber security engineers and care workers; the available candidates are marketing generalists and retail managers. No amount of willingness bridges that quickly, and retraining takes years for licensed occupations.
2. Geographic mismatch. Vacancies concentrated where housing is unaffordable, candidates concentrated elsewhere. Remote work eased this for a subset of office roles and did nothing for the majority of jobs, which are place-bound.
3. Wage expectation gaps. Employers advertising at rates candidates will not accept, and candidates seeking rates employers will not pay. The vacancy stays open for months; both sides describe the other as unrealistic. This is a real and underappreciated cause.
4. Screening intensity. Longer processes, more stages, higher bars. Each additional filter reduces the probability any given candidate completes the process - so the same pool produces fewer hires. Employers under cost pressure raise bars rather than cancel roles, which is why hiring slows without openings falling.
5. Information problems on both sides. Job descriptions that do not describe the job, CVs that do not describe the candidate, and application volumes so high that genuine matches get lost in the noise. Applying became nearly free, which flooded the channel and made the signal harder to find.
What is not usually the explanation
Two popular explanations do less work than people assume. First, that vacancies are largely fake - some are, but ghost postings are a minority rather than the main story. Second, that candidates are unwilling to work - the data on job search intensity does not support this as a primary cause in most markets.
Being sceptical of the emotionally satisfying explanation is a useful habit here.
What it means for your search
- The mismatch is your opportunity if you sit on the right side of it. Roles that are genuinely hard to fill have far better odds - target them deliberately.
- Address the wage gap explicitly. Ask about range early. A three-month process that ends in an unbridgeable salary gap wastes everyone's time.
- Cut through the information problem. Make your match to the specific requirements obvious in ten seconds, and use referrals to bypass the noisy channel entirely.
- Be realistic about mismatch. If your skills are on the oversupplied side, closing that gap - not applying harder - is the actual solution.
Reading the data yourself
Vacancies, hires, unemployment and the relationship between them are all published monthly. Learning to read them is ordinary applied statistics, and the Statistics for Business course at London School of Business UK teaches that kind of interpretation. Enquire today.