The market for senior leaders has turned

The candidate market has become an employer market

For the first quarter of 2026, the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (the research institute of the German Federal Employment Agency) counts around 1.15 million open positions in Germany. That is 105,800 fewer than in the previous quarter, a fall of eight percent. There are now 264 unemployed people for every 100 open positions, against 251 the quarter before.

IAB-Monitor Arbeitskräftebedarf 1/2026. The vacancy rate sets open positions against all jobs in the economy.

Time to fill is moving with it. In 2025 an average of 86 days passed between the start of a search and the first day at work, nine days fewer than in the peak year of 2022. Companies report the same easing. In the Fachkräftereport of the DIHK (the German Chambers of Commerce), answered by more than 21,000 companies, 36 percent say they cannot fill open positions, at least in part. A year earlier that figure was seven percentage points higher.

The shift is clearest at leadership level. The Bundesagentur für Arbeit (the German Federal Employment Agency) counted around 49,000 executives registered as unemployed as an annual average for 2025, after around 43,000 the year before. The agency notes that this rise of 14 percent is far steeper than for other groups of employees.

More people available does not mean more people who fit

If you read that as leadership positions now being easy to fill, the second set of figures says otherwise. In summer 2025 the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (a German economic research institute) surveyed around 5,000 employees about their career plans. Among those without a leadership role, 14 percent can clearly see themselves taking one on. 40 percent tie the step to conditions. 43 percent do not want it.

The reasons for turning it down tell you more. Workload comes first at 77 percent, followed by the weight of responsibility at 75 percent and concern about private life at 73 percent. Too little financial reward comes only after that, at 48 percent.

Stepstone Gehaltsreport 2026, based on more than 1.3 million salary figures. These are self-reported by platform users and therefore run high.

Those two figures together explain the hiring problem better than any skills shortage statistic. The workload that puts off 77 percent is paid for with a premium of about a fifth. The pool of people who would be available for a leadership job is growing right now. The pool of people who want one is not growing with it.

For an appointment, that moves the ground. What makes a position attractive is decided by how the role is cut. How much authority it carries to decide things, who it reports to, how much backing comes from above. These points belong in the briefing, well before the salary conversation at the end.

Leadership positions are barely visible on the open market

index Research analyses the largest job advert database in Europe. For 2024 the company counted around 45,000 advertised C-level positions in Germany, 19 percent fewer than the year before. Measured against all job adverts, that is 0.4 percent, or four in a thousand.

How appointments actually come about is measured by the IAB in its job vacancy survey. Of the new hires made in 2025, 27 percent came through personal contacts, 21 percent through internet job boards and 20 percent through the company's own website. The channel companies use most often is not the one that produces the most hires.

At the same time, the number of applications per advert has risen sharply. For January to April 2026, Stepstone measures interest in applying at almost twice the level of the same period in 2023. More applications means more screening. The number of suitable candidates has not risen with it.

What AI in recruiting actually does today

Few subjects are talked about this much and used this little. Bitkom (the German digital industry association) surveys German companies on a representative basis every year. For 2026, no AI application in HR is used by more than 16 percent of them. Individual training and development leads at 16 percent, employment references and onboarding follow at 14 percent each.

In recruiting in the narrower sense the figures are lower still. A Bitkom survey of 852 companies found one percent using AI to pre-screen applications, one percent running AI-led interviews and three percent using AI to analyse competencies.

Bitkom, survey September to November 2024, 852 companies with three or more employees, published March 2025.

The check on the other side of the table is clear. In a survey of 2,629 applicants, 28.1 percent held AI-supported pre-screening to be acceptable and 52.3 percent rejected it. 58.4 percent held the right model to be one in which a machine sorts first and a person decides. Six percent accepted a decision made by a machine alone. The study comes from a provider of applicant management software, so the direction of the figures is plausible while their exact level is uncertain.

The same survey asked people to rate the ways a first contact is made. Booking an appointment through a chatbot scored 2.77 out of five stars. The same booking handled by a person scored 4.25.

That tells you where the technology has its place and where it does not. In research it widens what can be covered. More companies in view, more career histories that can be compared, sorted more finely by what a position requires. In approaching an executive who is not looking, what still decides is whether someone has taken the trouble to understand their situation.

What this means for filling a position

Three points follow from the figures without any need to interpret them.

• The shape of the role decides more about the outcome than the salary band does. Most of the people who could do the work turn leadership down because of the load it carries. Money ranks lower.
• Advertising alone reaches a growing part of the market that fits less well. The four adverts in a thousand that concern leadership positions compete with everything else for the same attention.
• Technology belongs in the research. It widens the search field measurably. The acceptance is then decided in a conversation.

And a fourth point, which comes from the state of the market rather than from the figures. When more executives are available than in the years before, selection matters more. A larger pool produces more candidates who fit on paper.