L-R: Gaby Wagner, Deputy Director of ADEM; Nicolas Schmit, Minister of Labour, Employment, Social and Solidarity Economy; Isabelle Schlesser, director of ADEM; Ian Tewes, Deputy Director of ADEM;
Credit: ADEM
Last year was marked by sustained growth in employment in Luxembourg as well as the continued decline in unemployment, which began in 2015.
The number of jobseekers fell by 4.4% year-on-year. This drop is particularly significant for young people under 30 as well as for low-skilled jobseekers. It has also benefited the long-term unemployed who have been registered with the Employment Development Agency (ADEM) for more than 12 months.
Moreover, the ADEM introduced a new scheme to combat long-term unemployment in August 2017. As such, employers in the public sector and associations of the social and solidarity economy who create job opportunities for the unemployed may receive reimbursement of salary costs by the State. In 2017, 99 applications for the creation of new integration jobs were introduced.
In addition, 2017 saw the launch of the COSP-HR (Centre for Socio-Professional Guidance for People with Disabilities or Reclassified) project. The main objective of this project is to evaluate, for a period of two months, the skills of jobseekers with the status of disabled employee to facilitate their career (re)orientation. More than 200 people were able to follow the course in its entirety and 39 people have already (re)found employment.
Regarding the integration of people with health problems, the ADEM Contact Centre has been leading the way. This service, composed mainly of disabled people or reclassified employees was awarded the Diversity Award 2017. The year 2017 also allowed ADEM to prepare two major projects that will be implemented in 2018 and that modify both the registration of jobseekers and the method of support.
In order to reduce the imbalance between job offers and the profiles of jobseekers, and to support hiring for trades with labour shortages, in 2017, ADEM set as a priority project the development of the training offer. More than 4,900 jobseekers were able to take part in a training event organised by ADEM and 30 new training offers were put in place in 2017.
Finally, last year saw the signing of a new programme "Businesses, partners for employment" with the Union of Luxembourg companies following good results achieved since 2015. The actions planned for the years 2018 to 2020 are more particularly focused on identifying trends in the job market for trades for which there is a high demand.
