German companies are increasingly struggling to fill job vacancies due to historically low unemployment, reports Xinhua, citing data from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the research institute of Germany's Federal Employment Agency. The unemployed-to-vacancies ratio has fell to its lowest level since 1992, with two jobless Germans per occupational opening in 2017.  The researchers further highlighted that the share of new positions in which companies in Germany encountered difficulty in hiring staff has increased from around 12% in 2003 to 43% in 2017 as a consequence of the country's thriving labour market and strong economic momentum. Every year since 2015, German companies polled by the researchers have now indicated that finding suitable staff is their single-greatest operational challenge. Meanwhile, 16% of employers said they had to offer higher wages to attract workers in 2017, compared to 6% in 2004. Germany has 1.2 million current job openings across the country, the highest level in 25 years. According to data from Eurostat, Germany had an unemployment rate of 3.4% in August, the second-lowest in the EU 28 after the Czech Republic.