{"id":4249,"date":"2026-09-14T09:53:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fornell.eu\/?p=4249"},"modified":"2026-09-14T09:53:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:53:37","slug":"the-labour-market-is-cooling-your-search-will-not-get-any-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fornell.eu\/en\/the-labour-market-is-cooling-your-search-will-not-get-any-easier\/","title":{"rendered":"The labour market is cooling. Your search will not get any easier."},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

“The labour market is quieting down.”<\/em> I hear that sentence at almost every board table this autumn, usually followed by the suggestion to postpone an appointment by another quarter. The reasoning is understandable: if the market loosens, waiting becomes cheaper and easier. There are two problems with it. The first is that the figures it rests on have already been overtaken. The second is that cooling in the broad labour market says very little about the level at which you are recruiting.<\/p>\r\n


Cooling is not the same as room to manoeuvre<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\r\n

The first-quarter figures for 2026 showed a clear easing and they were widely picked up. But on 30 July, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) published the second-quarter data and the picture reverses. At the end of June there were 375,000 open vacancies: three thousand fewer than a quarter earlier. Over the same period the number of unemployed fell by seventeen thousand to 396,000, or 3.9 per cent of the labour force. Because unemployment fell faster than the number of vacancies, there were 95 vacancies for every hundred unemployed, against 91 in the first quarter. Tension in the market did not ease. It rose.<\/p>\r\n

All CBS figures cited are seasonally adjusted.<\/p>\r\n

That is the uncomfortable part. The sentence being repeated at the board table is itself out of date. Anyone planning on “it is getting quieter”<\/em> is planning on information from two quarters ago.<\/p>\r\n


At executive level the opposite is happening<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Even in the quarters when the broad market did ease, that easing did not reach the positions I am asked about. For the first quarter of 2026, the Dutch public employment service UWV classified 87 of 93 occupational groups as tight or very tight. Public-sector executives and legal professionals sit explicitly in the “very tight” category: precisely the profiles supervisory boards and executive teams ask for when a key governance or legal position falls vacant.<\/p>\r\n

This is not a coincidence. The heavier the role, the smaller the pool and the less a cyclical movement changes it. A flattening vacancy market mainly means fewer junior and mid-level roles are being posted. It does not mean that more people capable of running an executive board have suddenly become available.<\/p>\r\n


The misjudgement of this autumn<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

The misjudgement lies in assuming that easing at the bottom filters upward. It does not. What does happen is that people stop moving.<\/p>\r\n

Intelligence Group published mobility data this spring. Internal mobility in the first quarter of 2026 came in at 9.8 per cent, the lowest level in thirteen years. Total mobility stood at 18.1 per cent, the lowest in four years. On an annual basis that amounts to roughly 190,000 fewer internal moves. Geert-Jan Waasdorp, director of Intelligence Group, summarised it as a labour market that is slowly locking up.<\/p>\r\n

For you as a client, that carries a counter-intuitive implication. A quieter market does not make people more mobile; it makes them more cautious. Those in doubt stay put. The candidate you are looking for is doing well, is paid well and has no reason whatsoever to respond to an advertisement. He or she will only move after a conversation that connects to something already in play: a role that has been outgrown, a reorganisation that turned out differently than promised, a succession that never came.<\/p>\r\n


An example from our own practice<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

I recently searched for a marketing director on behalf of a client. After eight weeks of search and selection I put forward a candidate who fitted: on substance, on the organisation and on timing. Four interviews followed with various people inside the organisation. The decision was then taken to postpone the appointment. Shortly afterwards, the assignment was withdrawn. The reason was a decision to restructure the organisation.<\/p>\r\n

That is a legitimate reason and the judgement was theirs to make. But it is also precisely the kind of question that belongs on the table before a search begins, not halfway through it. While the structure is still in motion, the role itself is not yet fixed and you are looking for someone to fill a position you are still drawing.<\/p>\r\n

What the example shows beyond that is what postponement costs. The organisation is months further on without a director an if the need returns, starts again from nothing: with a fresh search, in a market that will not have loosened by then.<\/p>\r\n

For the candidate it weighs heavier. That person had explained across four conversations why leaving was attractive, had settled the departure internally, and is now sitting in a role already taken leave of in their own mind. The next time a search firm calls, the first question will not be about the role. It will be whether the decision on the other side of the table has actually been taken.<\/p>\r\n

That is the price of a search without direction. Not only time, but credibility and expectation: with that one candidate and with a market in which these stories travel.<\/p>\r\n


What this does to lead times<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

At Fornell Human Capital, an assignment typically takes between three and six months, depending on the weight of the role and the difficulty of filling it. That is not slowness in the process. It is the time required to approach a small group carefully, build trust and hold the conversation that precedes the vacancy.<\/p>\r\n

Work that back. If you postpone an appointment by a quarter because the market is supposedly easing, you begin in January a process that runs into June or July. The position will then have gone almost a year without being properly filled: with all that implies for decision-making, succession, and the load on the colleagues covering the role.<\/p>\r\n


And there is confidentiality<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

At executive level, the search is rarely public. A sitting director leaving, a role being split, a succession not yet shared with the organisation: these are all situations in which you cannot advertise. That rules out most conventional recruitment and makes speed a function of network and approach rather than market conditions. A cooling market changes none of it.<\/p>\r\n


From the other side of the table<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

For the directors and executives reading this without being on the market, the mirror argument applies. The fact that you are not looking is precisely why you are approached. The mobility figures show that many people at your level are held in a position comfortable enough not to leave and not demanding enough to still hold in ten years’ time. An exploratory conversation with an adviser need lead nowhere. It does give you a view of what is happening in your sector, how your profile stands in the market and which roles will open up eighteen months from now. That is information you will not have if you only call at the moment you want to move.<\/p>\r\n

And, given the example above, ask one question before entering any process: has the decision on the other side of the table genuinely been taken? A good adviser will have verified the answer on your behalf. If you do not get one, you know enough.<\/p>\r\n


The regional picture is no simpler<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

In our own region the same layering is visible. In its 2026-2028 labour market forecast, UWV expects employment in Zuid-Kennemerland and IJmond to grow by roughly 2,800 jobs between 2025 and 2028, an increase of 1.3 per cent. Industry, heavily represented in this region, contracts slightly over the same period, by 0.2 per cent. The growth comes from healthcare and welfare, specialist business services and hospitality. Nationally, UWV allows for around 75,000 fewer jobs through 2028 if energy prices remain high.<\/p>\r\n

Growth and contraction, in the same region, in the same year. Steering by a single national average means steering by a number that exists nowhere.<\/p>\r\n


What this means for boards and supervisory boards<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

My advice is not to recruit faster. It is to reverse the order. Do not start with the vacancy; start with the conversation. Which successions are due within two years, which positions are vulnerable, and who in the market fits the direction you intend to take. That conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing, but it shortens the lead time considerably when it matters.<\/p>\r\n

Less reacting. More direction.<\/p>\r\n


In closing<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\r\n

The question this autumn is not whether the labour market is cooling. The question is whether your organisation is ready the moment a key position falls vacant \u2014 and whether you choose that moment yourself or it chooses you.<\/p>\r\n

Fornell Human Capital is an executive search and leadership consultancy based at Buitenplaats Beeckestijn in Velsen-Zuid, the Netherlands.
We advise supervisory boards, executive boards, management teams and owner-directors on appointments at board level.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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