Filling a vacancy takes structurally longer than before the pandemic, even now the market has cooled. The number of open vacancies has dropped clearly since 2022, yet the average vacancy stays open almost as long as it did then. Our conclusion: time to hire is the neglected cost of recruitment. The employer who speeds up the process wins the candidate from the employer who makes that candidate wait.
A measure for how long a vacancy stays open
CBS publishes every quarter how many vacancies are open and how many are filled. Divide the open stock by the number filled per quarter and you get a rough measure of how long the average vacancy stays open. CBS does not publish this measure itself; we derive it from its flow figures.
In 2017 and 2019, that standing time was clearly shorter than today. In the tight years it rose steeply, to a peak early in 2022. Since then the market has cooled, but the standing time has come down only a little and remains well above the level of 2019.
The market cooled, filling did not speed up
Since the peak, the number of open vacancies has fallen considerably. That is a real cooling. Yet the standing time fell only slightly over the same period.
Fewer vacancies but hardly faster filling means it was not the crowd that made hiring slow. The delay sits in bringing role and candidate together. The people who were easy to find and persuade have been found; what remains are roles for which the candidate does not come by itself. Part of the vacancy market has become structurally slow, whatever the economy does.
What a long standing time means
A team that loses someone should count on the seat staying empty for months, and that is the average across all sectors, from hospitality to engineering. Roles with few candidates sit above that average. How far above, this data does not show.
Months is also the time in which a candidate who does move collects several offers. The longer your own process takes, the more likely it is that the best candidate has already signed with someone faster. Slowness costs you the empty seat first and then the candidate.
What this does not show
The standing time is a derived measure, not a CBS figure. Dividing stock by outflow assumes an even flow and says nothing about individual vacancies. CBS counts lapsed vacancies as filled, so part of the outflow was withdrawn rather than filled, which makes the real time to fill likely longer than our measure. The data is seasonally adjusted and covers all sectors and levels together; the spread by occupation or region is not in it. If filling sped up clearly while the number of vacancies stayed level, our reading would no longer hold.
What you can do
You have the channel and the clock to work with. For roles that sit above the average, the candidate usually exists but does not apply, so approaching people shortens the front end of the process. And where the average seat stays empty for months, process speed is a competitive edge.
- Plan every vacancy with months of lead time. What must go faster needs a different channel than posting and waiting.
- Plan interviews in parallel, not in sequence. Every serial step costs weeks.
- Agree feedback deadlines in days. It is the cheapest acceleration there is.
- Decide quickly on a good candidate, who will have other offers soon.