49 Companies Receive Approval for Partial Unemployment in January

Luxembourg's Ministry of the Economy has reported that the Economic Committee (Comité de conjoncture) met on Tuesday 16 December 2025, under the chairmanship of Luxembourg’s Minister of Labour, Marc Spautz.

During the meeting, the Economic Committee first analysed the national economic situation and the labour market situation for November 2025.

The Committee then examined the forecast requests for short-time working for January 2026. The number of requests submitted decreased by one compared with the previous month. In total, 60 companies submitted a preliminary request to benefit from the provisions of this measure for the month concerned; the final decision on the granting of this support lies with the Government Council (Cabinet).

After analysing the files submitted, the Committee approved 49 requests. Of these, 33 were due to cyclical reasons, eight were due to structural reasons (i.e. linked to an employment retention plan) and eight requests were justified by economic dependence. The number of employees concerned amounted to 4,584 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs, compared with 4,810 the previous month.

According to the Committee, these figures are indicative and relate to the forecast number of employees affected; they therefore do not represent a concrete indicator of the economic situation. This is why the Economic Committee also reports the number of employees who have actually benefited from the measure. That assessment can be made three months after the forecast requests are submitted. Once a forecast request has been approved, companies have two months to submit a breakdown of the hours actually lost to ADEM.

With regard to short-time working requests for September 2025, approved at the August 2025 committee meeting, of the 41 forecast requests approved, 24 companies actually made use of short-time working. Five cases remain under review, bringing the number of settled cases to 19.

In total, of these 19 reports, out of the 1,288 employees initially announced for September 2025, 714 employees actually took short-time working, compared with 674 employees the previous month. In terms of FTEs, 158 FTEs actually took short-time working, compared with 157 FTEs the previous month.

Companies declared 27,347 hours of short-time working for September 2025, compared with 27,166 hours the previous month.

The cost to the Employment Fund for September 2025 amounted to €220,611, compared with €629,706 in August 2025.

The Economic Committee also approved one employment retention plan and gave a positive opinion on four requests for tax exemption on severance and termination payments under Article 115 (10) LIR, covering a total of 89 employees.

The next meeting of the Economic Committee will take place on Tuesday 27 January 2026 at 09:00.