Unemployment or Labour Shortage

Employers increasingly claim to have difficulties in filling new job openings, while at the same time registered unemployment rate is still high. The question arises whether the unemployment rate is an adequate measure of actually disposable labour supply. In Austria registered unemployment has a strong seasonal component. However, seasonal workers are hardly available for work during their period off the job. Furthermore, a considerable number of people is, for various reasons, restricted in their work capacity or availability and therefore only partly disposable for work. Therefore, effective labour supply is likely to be a good deal smaller than suggested by the measured rate of unemployment.