Shortage or mismatch? The Belgian labour market data
Last updated: August 2026
"We can't find anyone anymore." You have said or heard that sentence this year. It has become a reflex, almost an inevitability.
The figures tell something more precise. And more useful, because a badly named problem does not get solved. If the problem is a shortage of hands, the answer is to search further afield. If the problem is a gap between what you ask for and what exists on the market, the answer lies elsewhere: in how you define your need.
In this article we put the Belgian labour market figures on the table. How many occupations are genuinely in shortage, which ones, and what agency work reveals about the economic cycle. Then three concrete levers for when the profile you are looking for does not exist.
How many shortage occupations in Belgium in 2026?
The Flemish list of shortage occupations drawn up by VDAB for 2026 counts 227 occupations.
One warning applies immediately, and it comes from VDAB itself: the occupational structure used this year has been thoroughly updated. Comparison with previous years' lists is therefore not possible. If you read elsewhere that the list is growing or shrinking compared with last year, that comparison has no solid basis.
The method rests on two pillars: a quantitative analysis of VDAB data and a qualitative survey among experts.
A geographical point, important if you compare figures with each other: these lists are regional. VDAB publishes the Flemish list, Forem the Walloon one and Actiris the Brussels one. They rest on related but distinct methodologies. There is no single national list. If you recruit in several regions, consult the one for the region where the work is performed.
Which profiles are genuinely unfindable?
Here is the top of the Flemish ranking for 2026. If you recruit in Wallonia or Brussels, consult the Forem and Actiris lists.
The ten most significant shortage occupations are:
- Nurse
- Accountant
- Industrial electromechanic
- Machining setter-operator
- Technician for construction, agricultural and lifting machinery
- Industrial maintenance manager
- Site manager
- Construction estimator
- Truck driver
- Horticultural worker
The observation that jumps out: more than half of this top 10 are technical roles. It is not the workforce in general that is missing, it is a precise type of skill that takes a long time to acquire and is hard to replace at short notice.
A second observation, less commented on: two of these occupations, accountant and site manager, are management or office roles. Shortage is therefore not only a problem of manual trades, despite what is often assumed.
Shortage or mismatch?
This is the heart of the matter, and the nuance that changes your strategy.
VDAB identifies three causes of persistent shortages: insufficient availability of candidates, a lack of the required skills or experience, and difficult working conditions. Only one of those three causes is shortage in the strict sense. The other two are about the gap between what the market offers and what employers ask for.
That gap takes several forms, and they are not addressed in the same way.
The skills gap. The candidates exist, but they do not have the technical qualification required. Only training solves this, and it takes time.
The requirements gap. You ask for three years of experience, a specific qualification, a driving licence, a language and immediate availability. Each added criterion shrinks the pool multiplicatively, not additively. Many vacancies go unfilled because they describe a profile that statistically almost does not exist.
The conditions gap. Split shifts, weekend work, geographical mobility, pay set at the sector minimum. The candidate exists, they choose something else.
The geographical gap. The profile exists, forty kilometres away, with no transport for a night shift.
The practical consequence is direct: if your difficulty falls under the last three cases, searching harder will change nothing. It is what you are looking for that needs revisiting, not the intensity with which you look for it.
What agency work reveals about the cycle
Agency work is a leading indicator of the economy. When activity slows, companies first cut flexible hours, before touching permanent contracts. When it picks up, they hire flexible first, before committing long term. Tracking agency hours therefore means reading the cycle a few months ahead.
Federgon, the sector federation, publishes a monthly index of agency activity, calculated against a January 2007 reference base and adjusted for seasonal variation. Two takeaways for 2026:
- The federation described the first quarter of 2026 as difficult for the agency work sector
- It sums up the overall picture in a telling phrase: labour market tightness is masking an economic storm
In other words: a market where difficulty in finding certain profiles coexists with genuine economic hesitation. For the monthly figures themselves, consult Federgon's knowledge centre directly, which updates its series every month.
For you, that has a concrete implication. In a hesitant market, a hiring mistake costs more than usual: hiring someone permanently when you are not sure about them, in an activity whose volume is not guaranteed, stacks two risks. That is precisely the context in which temporary employment regains its full value, as a real test before hiring.
Three levers when the profile does not exist
Lever 1: split the job
Take your job description and separate what genuinely requires the scarce skill from what does not.
A concrete example. You are looking for an industrial maintenance technician, one of the tightest occupations in the country. In the real content of the role, how much genuinely requires a maintenance qualification? Often 40 to 60%. The rest is handling, preparation, workshop tidying, documentation, administrative tasks.
If you hand that remainder to a broader profile, you turn an impossible search into two realistic searches, and you make the scarce role more attractive, because the person finally gets to do their actual job.
Lever 2: hire on potential, and test for real
A qualification is information about the past. Skill shows up in the work.
Temporary employment is the only arrangement that lets you evaluate a person in real conditions, over several weeks, before committing. And it works both ways: the candidate is evaluating you too. Our article on why a temp job can be the perfect stepping stone to a permanent hire sets out that mechanism.
A point often overlooked: if you hire on potential, you must plan for training. Otherwise you have simply hired someone who cannot yet do the work, and you will conclude that "standards are slipping".
Lever 3: widen the pool
Every channel you do not use is a pool your competitors are working.
- Students, including for light tasks that free up your qualified profiles
- Flexi-jobbers, now open to a wide range of sectors, as we explain in our flexi-job guide 2026
- People retraining, whose path does not tick your usual boxes
- Long-term jobseekers, whose situation is changing with the unemployment reform 2026
To choose the right channel for your need, our overview of temporary and flexible staffing options compares the available arrangements.
What you ask for, what is available
This table sums up the trade-off most employers do not make early enough.
| Your usual requirement | What it costs you in candidates | Realistic alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Specific technical qualification | Shrinks the pool to the bare minimum | Practical test or evaluation on assignment |
| Minimum 3 years' experience | Rules out trainable profiles | 1 year, plus an internal training plan |
| Immediate availability | Rules out people serving notice | Staggered start, temporary assignment first |
| Full-time only | Rules out a large share of candidates with constraints | Two part-timers on a split role |
| Full bilingualism | Rules out technically capable profiles | The level the job actually needs, not the level that feels comfortable |
None of these alternatives is a concession on quality. They are ways of paying the true price of skill where it counts, rather than demanding everywhere a level the market does not supply.
What employers should remember
227 shortage occupations in Flanders in 2026. That figure is not comparable with previous years, because the occupational structure has been revised. And the lists are regional: consult the one for your region.
More than half of the tightest occupations are technical. It is not the workforce in general that is missing, it is a precise qualification.
The real issue is often the gap, not the scarcity. When your difficulty comes from your requirements, your conditions or geography, searching harder produces no result. Redefining the need produces one immediately.
The market remains hesitant. After a difficult first quarter of 2026 for agency work, testing someone before hiring them remains the most prudent decision.
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Frequently asked questions
How many shortage occupations does Belgium have?
There is no national list. For 2026, the Flemish VDAB list counts 227 shortage occupations. VDAB specifies that this figure is not comparable with previous years' lists, because the occupational structure was revised this year. Forem and Actiris publish their own lists for Wallonia and Brussels.
Which occupations are hardest to fill?
In the 2026 Flemish ranking you find, among others, nurse, accountant, industrial electromechanic, machining setter-operator, technician for construction, agricultural and lifting machinery, industrial maintenance manager, site manager, construction estimator, truck driver and horticultural worker.
Why can't we find candidates?
Because the difficulty often comes from a gap between the profiles available and the profiles sought, rather than from an absence of people. The gap may be about qualification, about the level of demand in the vacancy, about working conditions or about geography.
Is agency work a good economic indicator?
Yes, it is a recognised leading indicator. Agency hours fall ahead of permanent employment in a slowdown, and rise ahead of it in a recovery. Federgon publishes a monthly index, adjusted for seasonal variation, with January 2007 as the reference base.
Should you lower your requirements to hire?
It is not about lowering your requirements, but about placing them where they count. Splitting a role, accepting one year of experience instead of three alongside a training plan, or evaluating on assignment rather than on a qualification, does not reduce the quality of the hire.
The information in this article is purely indicative and does not replace professional legal or accounting advice. The figures quoted come from VDAB and Federgon publications available at the time this article was updated. Always consult the official sources for the most recent data.