Are vacancies difficult to fill? an empirical investigation of the Dutch labour market

The search behaviour of employers is focused on by developing a model to analyse employers' recruitment behaviour taking into account job seekers' search process. In addition, the causes of anticipated difficulties on firms' recruitment behaviour that may slow down the process of filling vacancies is investigated empirically. To do so, a survey is employed which contains information on the two main problems encountered by Dutch employers during recruitment: namely, an insufficient number of applicants and too many rejections of job offers. High educational and experience requirements are found to cause a low rate of response to the vacancy posted; offers of permanent positions tend to be rejected by job seekers due to disagreements on the level of works offered. Further, the condition of the supply side of the labour market strongly influences employers' recruitment behaviour, as employers increase their search intensity whenever problems are anticipated.