Job quality index in the European Union by occupation 2023

As of 2023, the least well resourced occupations in Europe were nurses and midwives, healthcare workers, and truck and bus drivers. Staff in these occupations felt a higher level of job strain - that is, a difficult work environment, organization, and working times - which often contributed to shortages of staff due to high turnover and poor incentives to join these professions. The European Labour Authority has identified job strain as being a key factor in stimulating certain labor shortages, particularly in low-paid work. On average, almost a third of workers in the EU find that their positions cause at least moderate strain.

While most high strain professions are also areas with staff shortages, software developers are the group which are the most resourced and under the least strain in 2023, in spite of being a profession with a shortage of workers. This likely relates to the relatively high skill-level involved in the job, resulting in a shortage of workers with appropriate skills.