Thursday, 18 December 2025
The pace of activity on the labour market slowed slightly in November 2025, as reflected in a notable decline in online job advertisements. According to the Job Offer Barometer compiled by the Department of Economics and Finance at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów together with the Office of Investment and Economic Cycles, the index fell to 250.7 points in November, down from 254.9 points in October. Compared with November 2024, when the index stood at 251.3 points, current levels remain slightly lower.
November marked the second consecutive monthly decline in job advertisements and the largest single drop recorded this year. Since April, employer activity has shown signs of cooling, with the indicator consistently remaining marginally below last year’s levels. Declines were recorded across all four broad occupational groups monitored by the Barometer.
Despite the overall slowdown, the number of vacancies in manual occupations remains relatively high, even though postings in this category also declined. In occupations requiring education in science and engineering, November was the second month of falling vacancies following almost a year of growth. In services, as well as in professions linked to social sciences and law, the downward trend has been evident since mid-2024, although the situation in services remains comparatively more stable.
The registered unemployment rate, excluding seasonal workers, stood at 5.8% in October, unchanged from the previous month. While this is slightly higher than at the beginning of the year, it remains low by historical standards and in comparison with many other European Union countries.
From a regional perspective, only three provinces—Pomerania, Subcarpathia and Lublin—recorded a month-on-month increase in job postings, although the scale of growth was minimal. All other regions saw a decline, with the largest reductions reported in the Warmian-Masurian, West Pomeranian and Łódź provinces.
Across broad occupational categories, job postings fell on a monthly basis for the second consecutive month. The steepest decline was observed in professions requiring education in science or engineering. Although these categories had recorded growth for much of the year—driven largely by increased demand in IT and construction-related roles—vacancies have now begun to decrease. In programming-related occupations, growth slowed slightly after six months of increases, while postings in ICT administration, occupational health and safety and research and development saw particularly marked declines. Construction-related vacancies continue to stand out as the only category showing a sustained upward trend over the longer term, despite a decline in November.
In services, the overall downward trend that began in October 2024 continued. November vacancies in this group were lower than a year earlier, with one of the largest year-on-year gaps among all occupational categories. The only service segment to record a monthly increase was tourism, marking the second consecutive rise after a prolonged period of decline.
Professions linked to social sciences and law have also experienced a year-long reduction in job postings. In November, the year-on-year decrease in this group was the largest among all broad categories. Marketing specialists, graphic designers and human resources professionals accounted for the highest number of new postings within this segment, while the sharpest declines were recorded for call centre staff, sales roles and procurement-related positions. A divergence is increasingly visible within this group, with some professions stabilising while others, such as call centre roles, continue to contract. Legal professions, by contrast, show early signs of recovery.
Overall, the November data point to a gradual cooling of labour demand rather than a sharp deterioration. While job postings are declining across most sectors and regions, unemployment remains low, and selected areas—most notably construction—continue to show resilience.
Source: BIEC
