The Euro area job vacancy rate rose to 2.1% in the third quarter from 1.9% in the third quarter of 2018, according to numbers released last week by Eurostat, the Statistical office of the European Union.

In the 28-country European Union, the job vacancy rate rose to 2.2% in the third quarter of 2018 from 2.0% in the same quarter in 2017.

This year, Czech Republic posted the highest job vacancy rate at 5.9% in the third quarter; it was followed by Belgium at 3.6%. The third-highest vacancy rate was a tie — German, the Netherlands and Austria all posted a rate of 3.0%.

Greece posted the lowest vacancy rate in the third quarter at 0.6%. Second-lowest was in Spain at 0.8% then Bulgaria at 0.9%.

The job vacancy rate measures the proportion of total posts that are vacant, expressed as a percentage of all posts both occupied and vacant.