At the end of June 2026, 374,800 vacancies were open and 357,200 were filled per quarter. Divide the stock by the outflow and the average vacancy stays open for about 3.1 months, a measure we derive from the CBS flow figures. In 2019 it was 2.8 months, at the peak in early 2022 3.8. The market has cooled considerably since, from 463,700 to 374,800 open vacancies, but the time-to-fill fell by only about half a month. Filling a vacancy takes structurally longer than before the pandemic. Our conclusion: lead time is the neglected cost of recruitment. Whoever speeds up the process wins the candidate from employers who make people wait three months.
Every employer who recruited over the past year knows the feeling: it takes long. That feeling is right, and it can be measured. Divide the stock of open vacancies by the number filled per quarter and you see how long the average vacancy stays open. That time-to-fill has risen by more than a third of a month since 2019 and hardly falls any more, even now that the market is cooling.
This analysis derives that measure from the CBS vacancy flow figures. The counts are from CBS; the measure and the conclusions are ours.
From two and a half to more than three months
In 2017 the average vacancy stayed open for 2.5 months. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, it was 2.8 months. In the tight years the time-to-fill shot up, to 3.8 months in the first quarter of 2022. After that the market cooled, but the time-to-fill stuck: 3.4 in 2024, 3.2 in 2025 and 3.1 months in the first half of 2026.
| Year | Average time-to-fill |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 2.5 months |
| 2019 | 2.8 months |
| 2022 | 3.6 months |
| 2024 | 3.4 months |
| 2026 | 3.1 months |
The market cooled, filling did not speed up
Since the peak, the number of open vacancies has fallen by almost 90,000: from 463,700 in the second quarter of 2022 to 374,800 at the end of June 2026. That is a sharp cooling. Yet over the same period the time-to-fill fell by only about half a month, and the 2019 level is not in sight.
Fewer vacancies but hardly faster filling means it was not the crowding that made filling slow. The delay is in the match itself. The people who were easy to find and to convince have been found; what remains are roles for which the candidate does not come by themselves. Part of the vacancy market has become structurally slow, regardless of the economic cycle.
What three months means
An average time-to-fill of 3.1 months means that a team that loses someone must expect the chair to stay empty for a full quarter, and that is the average across all sectors, from hospitality to engineering. Roles with few candidates sit above that average; how far above, this table does not show.
Three months is also the time in which a candidate who is moving collects several offers. The longer your own process takes, the greater the chance that the best candidate has already signed with someone faster. Slowness costs twice: first the empty chair, then the candidate.
What the figures do not show
Time-to-fill is a derived measure, not a CBS figure: stock divided by outflow assumes an even flow and says nothing about individual vacancies. CBS also counts lapsed vacancies as filled; part of the outflow was withdrawn rather than filled, so the real time-to-fill is more likely higher than our measure. The figures are seasonally adjusted and cover all sectors and levels together; the spread by occupation or region is not in this table.
Our conclusion
Filling takes structurally longer than before the pandemic, even now that the market is looser. The cause is not the number of vacancies but the candidate who does not come by themselves, and an economic cycle does not solve that. Whoever recruits can turn two dials: the channel and the clock.
The channel: for roles where the time-to-fill is above average, the candidate usually exists but does not apply. Approaching shortens the front of the process, because you do not wait for the thin stream of active job seekers to happen to pass by.
The clock: in a market where the average chair stays empty for a quarter, process speed is a competitive advantage. Whoever gives feedback within days, schedules interviews in parallel and decides quickly wins candidates from employers who do not.
- Plan every vacancy with a quarter of lead time by default; anything faster needs a different channel than posting and waiting.
- Schedule interviews in parallel, not one after the other; every serial step costs weeks.
- Agree feedback times in days; it is the cheapest acceleration there is.
- Decide quickly on a good candidate: within three months that candidate has more offers.
Method
All counts come from CBS StatLine table 84545NED, vacancies, flow figures, seasonally adjusted, from the first quarter of 1997 to the second quarter of 2026, retrieved on 1 September 2026 and checked again on 28 September 2026. We calculated time-to-fill as the open stock at the end of a quarter, divided by the number of vacancies filled in that quarter, times three months; annual values are the average of the four quarters. Comparisons always use the same measure. The table is published under the CBS licence CC BY 4.0.