Statistical processing

Source data

For the private sector: Data for these statistics are collected from a sample of approximately 9,000 units (before 2026 the sample was approximately 7,000), defined as workplaces with at least one employee. The sample is drawn from Statistics Denmark's Statistical Business Register (SBR).

For the public sector: The register data consist of a linkage of advertised vacancies from https://jobnet.dk/ and Copenhagen Municipality as well as workplace information, including the number of occupied posts, from SBR. https://jobnet.dk/ is the main source for the number of job vacancies. Some CVR units post too many job vacancies on too few workplaces/p-numbers on https://jobnet.dk/. This is the case for the largest CVR unit in the https://jobnet.dk/ data, namely Copenhagen Municipality. In return, it has become possible to receive data directly from Copenhagen Municipality, which improves both the general quality of the data and the quality of the distribution key used to remedy other CVR units with similar problems.

Frequency of data collection

The statistics are published quarterly.

Survey data are collected monthly, register data from Copenhagen Municipality are received monthly, and register data from https://jobnet.dk/ are received quarterly.

The sample from survey data (i.e. data from the private sector) is divided into three groups, where the 1st group reports data concerning the 1st month of the quarter, the 2nd group reports data concerning the 2nd month of the quarter, and the 3rd group reports data for the 3rd month of the quarter.

For the survey part, the variation among the workplaces in each individual stratum is equally distributed, and each individual workplace is only selected once in the quarter in the survey data.

For register data, all workplaces in the public sector are included each month. Each job advertisement has a date for when the job advertisement was posted on the job portal, and either when the job advertisement was removed from the job portal or the expected application deadline. It is therefore possible to extract the number of advertised job vacancies for all days of the year, but to create the greatest possible comparability with the survey-based part of the statistics, the same counting dates are used.

Data collection

For the private sector: Data are reported electronically via the public reporting platform https://virk.dk/. Requests for reporting are always sent on the reference date, which is the second Wednesday of the month. This is done via Digital Post or by e-mail. The workplace has 14 days to report data punctually. Reporting for the statistics is legally required and subject to mandatory digital reporting. Workplaces that do not report despite reminders receive a registered letter drawing attention to the fact that failure to report will result in a police notification, cf. the Act on Statistics Denmark.

For the public sector: Data are received as flat files from https://www.jobnet.dk and Copenhagen Municipality. Register data from Copenhagen Municipality are received monthly, and register data from https://www.jobnet.dk are received quarterly.

Data validation

For the private sector: Incoming reports are continuously checked for errors. To ensure that data are reported for the individual workplace and that the report is consistent with an expected level, the reported number of employees is validated against register information on the number of employees from Statistics Denmark’s Statistical Business Register (SBR). If the reported data deviate substantially from SBR, the workplace is contacted to have the report verified.

The number of job vacancies is also checked in relation to the reported number of employees. If the number of job vacancies deviates substantially from what is expected for a workplace of the stated size, the workplace is contacted.

Overall, approximately 10 percent of the workplaces are contacted in connection with data editing. It must be assumed that not all reporting errors are detected during data editing, which means that the statistics are subject to some uncertainty.

For workplaces with more than 100 employees that have not reported, data are imputed.

For the public sector: Before private workplaces and workplaces in industry group A are filtered out, the data are compared with STAR's own published figures on http://www.Jobindsats.dk. In the subsequent data processing, it is assessed whether the redistribution of presumed misreported advertised vacancies has worked satisfactorily. Finally, the monthly number of job vacancies is compared with previous monthly numbers of job vacancies, and any outliers are assessed at both CVR and workplace level.

Data compilation

For the private sector: For enterprises subject to mandatory reporting (workplaces with more than 100 employees) that either have not reported or have been exempted, data are imputed, as far as possible, before grossing-up. The method used is a ratio estimate via the program Banff.

The imputation is primarily based on reports within the same industry in the same period. Alternatively, it is based on reports from workplaces within the same stratum.

Statistics Denmark make an effort to ensure that all workplaces subject to reporting have reported data, so that imputation is only relevant for workplaces that, for one reason or another, have been exempted from reporting.

The imputation rate for the 1st quarter of 2026 was 0.11 percent of the total sample and 0.35 percent for workplaces with more than 100 employees.

Statistics Denmark estimates the number of job vacancies (and occupied posts) by using the number of registered employees (according to the CVR) at the workplace as auxiliary information. This is done using a generalised regression method. The grossing-up itself is carried out using the program CLAN with model-assisted estimation.

For the public sector: Based on the analysis of a comprehensive test survey financed by EUROSTAT and conducted in May 2024, with responses from more than one quarter of the workplaces in the public-sector population, two models have been established:

1. The advertised job vacancies are added together with intended job vacancies (i.e. positions for which the employer is prepared to take steps to seek an employee) by adding the number of advertised vacancies on the counting date to advertised job vacancies 1 to 13 days after the counting date.

2. In register data, a share of CVR units have placed a suspiciously large share of advertised vacancies on, for example, administrative workplaces such as the municipal administration’s p-number instead of the day care institution's p-number. In these cases, a model has been established that distributes workplaces with a marked suspicion of this type of misreporting.

The models are elaborated in section "5.03.05 Model assumptions".

Adjustment

For the private sector: When a new quarter is published, data are revised one rolling year back in time. The reason is delays in reporting data from workplaces as well as continued error-checking of reported survey data.

The number of job vacancies typically declines by between 0.5 and 2.0 percent, while the job vacancy rate is most often stable. The job vacancy rate has never declined by more than 0.1 percentage points before the data obtain final status.

From the 2nd quarter of 2015 onwards, Statistics Denmark has made two minor changes: 1. The population is drawn using employment data (number of occupied posts) from the same quarter in the previous year. This is done to compensate for any deviations in the seasonal patterns in the different quarters. 2. The estimation method for grossing-up exempted/missing units with more than 100 employees has been changed.

These two changes have had no impact on the job vacancy rate and only a minimal impact on the number of job vacancies in the period 2010Q3-2015Q1.

The main figures for the number of job vacancies and the number of occupied posts are seasonally adjusted for normal fluctuations for industries B to O. No significant seasonal patterns can yet be seen in the rest of the series, which is why these are not seasonally adjusted.

Note: As data do not go far enough back in time for industries P-TUV, these industries are not yet seasonally adjusted. When a sufficiently long time series is available, data from these industry groups will also be seasonally adjusted.

For the public sector: Data are revised every quarter, as the most updated data source from SBR is used for workplace information, including the number of occupied posts.