Companies are mainly looking for staff because of retirement, maternity leave, parental leave and resignations, but also because of growing demand for their products or services, or expansion of business.

The sector expected to employ the most people is construction, where a 9.3% rise in staff is planned, but hiring is also planned in other industries (+6.2%). No sector is to cut the number of staff, the Employment Service said.

The most sought-after workers in the second half of the year will be drivers of heavy lorries and towing vehicles, production workers, builders, welders, shop assistants, electricians, cooks, cleaners, attendants and toolmakers.

The list also includes many professions that have been in short supply for a while, including kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers.

In the last six months, 44.6% of employers were faced with staff shortages. For big companies, the share is 65.9%.

Employers have the most problems finding staff in the hospitality sector (63.8%), health and social security (62.7%), other business activities (58.4%), construction (52.9%), manufacturing (51.5%) and transport and storage (51.4%).

Some 34.4% of employers have decided to hire workers from abroad.

In 49.3% of the cases, the rest of the staff were forced to do overtime because of problems with finding extra staff.

Just over 32% of employers expect the demand for their products or services to rise in the next six months, 61% do not expect any changes, almost 5% expect the situation to deteriorate and almost 2% did not respond.

The most optimism was recorded in the real estate business, where almost 49% of companies expect an increase in demand.

The survey was conducted among 5,358 companies and organisations with at least 10 employees. 2,915 employers with a total of 335,000 staff provided responses.