It's a common annoyance in a lot of gear, done entirely to reduce manufacturing cost because the jack can be mounted on the main circuit board by a machine rather than hand-soldered by an expensive human. I just got a new synth, my first ever with a headphone jack on the front (yay!). I spent 10 minutes searching for the headphone jack on the back panel before it occurred to me to check the front.
On a conventional full-size console, there's usually room to wire in a jack at a more convenient location. Unfortunately, compact mixers like yours typically have very little room to spare inside. Your best solution might be to add an inexpensive headphone amp, which could also let you have more than one headphone output