Hiring guideRead at source, 29 September 2026
Hard to Fill Positions: Why Some Jobs Stay Open, and How to Fill Each Kind
Hard to fill positions usually fall into four groups: jobs gated by a license or credential (CDL drivers, nurses, therapists), high-turnover volume roles that reopen constantly (caregivers, food service, retail), jobs with a schedule or location few people want, and jobs where the pay or the process is the real obstacle. Diagnose which one you have before spending more. Credential gaps need wider reach and pipelines; the other three are usually fixed in the ad, the application and the speed of follow-up.
What makes positions hard to fill
"Hard to fill" is a symptom, and employers use it for very different problems. The best public evidence on what employers mean comes from state job vacancy surveys, which ask employers directly. In Oregon's 2024 Job Vacancy Survey, run by the Oregon Employment Department with 4,600 employer responses, employers said they had difficulty filling 55% of their vacancies. The reasons they gave were spread out:
| Reason given | Share of difficult-to-fill vacancies |
|---|---|
| Lack of qualified candidates | 28% |
| Lack of applicants | 24% |
| Lack of work experience | 10% |
| Unfavorable working conditions | 8% |
| Low wages | 8% |
Source: Oregon Employment Department, Difficult to Fill Job Openings in 2024, published 8 April 2025. One state, one year, and self-reported, but it shows the point that matters: "not enough applicants" and "not enough qualified applicants" are separate problems, and together they are only about half the story.
Nationally, the headline shortage is smaller than it sounds. In August 2026 (preliminary), BLS counted 7,079,000 job openings and 7,031,000 unemployed people, about one unemployed person for every opening. Our labor shortage analysis breaks that down by industry. Whatever makes a particular position hard to fill, a national absence of people usually is not it.
Which positions are hard to fill
The same Oregon survey listed the occupations with the most hard-to-fill vacancies. At the top were personal care aides (1,400 openings), heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers (930), automotive service technicians and mechanics (880) and registered nurses (750). Where employers lacked qualified candidates, other common occupations included dental hygienists and licensed practical and vocational nurses; where they lacked applicants, fast food and counter workers, maids and housekeeping cleaners, dental assistants and restaurant cooks.
That list mixes two very different kinds of job, and the national projections show why. Some are hard because of volume and churn; others because of a credential:
| Occupation | Employment, 2025 | Annual openings | Median annual wage, May 2025 | Typical entry education |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home health and personal care aides | 4,677,100 | 760,500 | $35,800 | High school diploma or equivalent |
| Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers | 2,221,200 | 214,500 | $58,640 | Postsecondary nondegree award |
| Registered nurses | 3,465,400 | 180,800 | $97,550 | Bachelor's degree |
| Automotive service technicians and mechanics | 825,800 | 66,200 | $50,620 | Postsecondary nondegree award |
| Physical therapists | 283,700 | 13,400 | $102,760 | Doctoral or professional degree |
Home health and personal care aides have more projected annual openings than almost any other occupation, and most of those openings replace people who leave. Physical therapists have few openings, but each one needs a licensed professional who is usually employed already.
The four kinds of hard-to-fill position
| Kind | Typical roles | The tell | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credential-gated | CDL drivers, RNs, LPNs, therapists, licensed trades | Plenty of clicks and interest, few applicants who hold the license | Wider reach to employed license-holders, a very short application, a training pipeline |
| High-turnover volume | Caregivers, food service, retail, warehouse | Applicants arrive, but the job reopens within weeks | Speed of follow-up, clearer schedules, and fixing the first 90 days |
| Schedule or location | Nights, weekends, split shifts, rural sites | Applicants drop out when the shift or distance comes up | Put the schedule in the ad, widen the radius, pay a differential |
| Pay or process | Any role paying under the local market, or with a long process | Offers declined, candidates vanish between steps | Pay in the ad, fewer steps, same-day decisions |
A quick test separates the first kind from the rest. If you removed every requirement that is not legally mandatory, would your applicant pool grow? If it would, the position is hard to fill because of how it is specified or sold, and you can fix that this week. If it would not, you have a genuine credential gap.
How to fill credential-gated positions
Some jobs cannot be filled by anyone without a license. Driving a commercial motor vehicle requires a commercial driver's license under FMCSA rules, and nurses are licensed by state boards of nursing after passing the NCLEX. You cannot advertise your way around a license; you can only reach more of the people who hold one.
- Reach the employed. Most licensed people already have a job and are not reading job boards. Social job ads reach them while they scroll; see passive candidate recruiting.
- Protect the application. Credentialed candidates abandon long forms. In Boostpoint's 2026 benchmark, only 8% of clickers finished applications for CDL truck driver campaigns and 5% for therapy (PT / OT / SLP) campaigns, against 31% for the caregiver / home care family. Ask for the license once, and nothing else that can wait for the call.
- Build the pipeline. Where the licensed pool really is too small, the answer is training: tuition support, CDL school partnerships, CNA-to-LPN ladders. That is slower, and it works.
How to fill high-turnover positions
Volume roles are often called hard to fill when they are really hard to keep. If a caregiver or line cook role reopens every few weeks, a bigger ad budget buys the same problem faster. Two changes move it:
- Speed. Hourly candidates apply to several jobs at once. Text every applicant within minutes and have a person reach qualified ones the same day. Our guide to following up with applicants sets out the timeline.
- The first 90 days. Early quits are where volume roles leak. The first 90 days page covers where those exits happen.
The benchmark supports treating these as speed and volume problems rather than cost problems: the caregiver / home care family ran a median of $3.76 per applicant, with the middle half of campaigns between $2.99 and $5.83.
How to fill positions with hard schedules or locations
Night shifts, weekend rotations and rural sites narrow the pool, but hiding them makes it worse, because candidates drop out the moment the schedule comes up. Put the shift and the location in the first line of the ad, then fix the reach:
- Widen the radius. Facebook and Instagram employment ads run in Meta's Special Ad Category, which requires a location radius of at least 15 miles and does not allow targeting by age, gender or ZIP code. For a rural site, a wider radius is usually the single biggest lever. See Meta's Special Ad Category explained.
- Pay the differential, and say so. A night differential nobody knows about recruits nobody.
- Offer the schedule people want. Fixed shifts, three twelves, or four tens can turn a hard-to-fill schedule into a selling point.
How to fill positions where pay or process is the problem
If candidates apply and then decline offers or disappear between steps, the position is not short of people. Put the pay range in the ad, because a posting without it loses the candidates who have other options. Then count your steps from application to offer and remove any that do not change a decision. For frontline roles, a same-day conditional offer after a good interview is often the difference between a hire and a no-show.
Recruiting strategies for positions that are hard to fill
Whatever kind you have, the same short list applies, in this order:
- Diagnose which kind it is before changing anything.
- Rewrite the ad around the two or three things this candidate checks first: pay, schedule, location, and the license if one is needed.
- Cut the application to legal and genuine requirements. The apply experience explained 70% of the variation in cost per applicant between campaigns in Boostpoint's benchmark.
- Reach people who are not looking: social ads, referrals and rehires, not only job boards.
- Follow up within minutes and decide within days.
- Measure applicants, interviews and hires by source, so you know which fix worked.
Our recruiting strategies page ranks these by what they change, and the 2026 benchmark gives the cost per applicant to expect for fifteen role families.
Frequently asked questions
What are hard to fill positions?
Jobs that stay open longer than an employer can afford, usually because the role needs a license few people hold, turns over constantly, has an unpopular schedule or location, or pays or processes candidates below what the local market expects.
What positions are hardest to fill?
In Oregon's 2024 Job Vacancy Survey, the occupations with the most difficult-to-fill vacancies were personal care aides, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers, automotive service technicians and mechanics, and registered nurses. The list mixes licensed roles with high-turnover care and service roles.
Why are some positions so hard to fill?
Oregon employers most often cited a lack of qualified candidates (28% of difficult vacancies) and a lack of applicants (24%), followed by lack of work experience, unfavorable working conditions and low wages (10%, 8% and 8%).
Is there a national worker shortage in 2026?
Not in aggregate. In August 2026 (preliminary), BLS counted 7,079,000 job openings and 7,031,000 unemployed people, roughly one unemployed person per opening. Shortages are real in specific licensed roles and places. See our labor shortage analysis.
How do you recruit for a hard to fill position?
Diagnose the kind first. For licensed roles, reach employed license-holders and keep the application short. For volume roles, speed up follow-up and fix early turnover. For schedule, location, pay or process problems, put those facts in the ad and remove steps.
Do bigger ad budgets fix hard to fill positions?
Rarely on their own. In Boostpoint's 2026 benchmark, the apply experience explained 70% of the variation in cost per applicant between campaigns, while what the ad auction charged explained 18%. Friction after the click usually matters more than spend.
How much does it cost to advertise a hard to fill job on social media?
It depends on the role family. In Boostpoint's 2026 benchmark, medians included $3.76 per applicant for caregiver / home care, $26.86 for CDL truck drivers and $74.62 for therapy (PT / OT / SLP). Cost per applicant is not cost per hire.
What is the difference between a hard to fill position and a labor shortage?
A labor shortage means too few qualified people exist in the market. A hard to fill position may simply be under-paid, badly advertised or slow to hire. Removing non-mandatory requirements is a quick test: if the pool grows, it was not a shortage.
Reach the people your job boards can't
Boostpoint Attract runs Facebook and Instagram job ads, with all the creative made for you, that reach employed license-holders and hourly workers in your radius, and Boostpoint Connect texts every applicant the moment they apply.
Book a DemoSources: Oregon Employment Department, Difficult to Fill Job Openings in 2024 (Oregon Job Vacancy Survey); BLS Employment Projections 2025-35 and May 2025 median annual wages; BLS JOLTS and Current Population Survey, August 2026 (preliminary JOLTS), via the BLS public data API; FMCSA commercial driver's license page; NCSBN NCLEX page; Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark. Read at source 29 September 2026.