Employment statistics for permanent paid employees; Credit: Ministry of Social Security

In one year, the number of employees in Luxembourg has increased by 3.6% to 412,830, according to Statec, Luxembourg's national statistics office..

The latest findings on the labour market, which newly incorporated the indicator of age, have revealed that there were 412,830 employees in Luxembourg as of 30 June 2017 compared to 398,550 at the end of June 2016. This represents an annual increase of 14,280 units or +3.6%.

Behind this annual growth in the total number of employees, there were also many people entering and leaving the labour market. Therefore, over the same period (June 2016-June 2017), 145,830 new employees were recruited while 131,550 contracts ended, 5,000 of which were retirement. Excluding temporary work, which accounts for about one-fifth of all labour flows, there were 117,180 new recruitments and 102,990 end-of-contracts within 12 months.

Regarding the different age groups, the findings have shown that under-25s account for 21% of new recruitments (ie 24,890), whereas they account for only 6.3% of non-hired employees in June 2017. It is believed that this overrepresentation of young people in hiring compared to their number in paid employment is due to the great instability of career paths of young people who take on fixed-term contracts before finding a stable job. It should also be noted that young people represent only 16% of the total cases where a contract ended (ie 15,990), meaning that more young people are going into work than leaving a job.

The same trends were present in the 25-34 age group with an overrepresentation in recruitment (36% versus 27% in non-temporary salaried employment) and a positive employment dynamic (41,960 new hires versus 35,510 ending contracts). On the other hand, these figures are reversed for the over 35s.