Wage employment in Luxembourg has continued to grow since the crisis-related fall. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Wage employment in Luxembourg has continued to grow since the crisis-related fall. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Luxembourg has continued to recruit new staff with salaried employment increasing by 0.8% in one quarter and by 3.7% in one year, according to Statec. Specifically, a more pronounced growth has been observed in administration and public services as well as in specialised activities and support services.

The upswing in employment is confirmed. After falling by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2020, it had already risen by 1.3% in the third quarter, which continued with +0.7% in the last quarter of 2020, +0.8% in the first quarter of 2021 and, again, +0.8% in the second quarter of 2021, according to the latest figures published by Statec. Over one year, the increase amounts to +3.7%. Compared to the second quarter of 2019, salaried employment is up by 4.8%. In total, Luxembourg has 458,052 salaried jobs.

Social work and cleaning

Jobs were created in all sectors between the first and second quarters of this year, "which had not been observed since the second quarter of 2020", notes the Statec. One sector is more dynamic than the others: administration and other public services, where salaried employment increased by 1.6% in one quarter and by 5.5% in one year. On a yearly basis it is the specialised and support services that increased their employment the most, by 7.7%.

In administration and other public services, the increase comes mainly from the central administration and housing-free social work. In the specialised activities and support services branch, it is rather the activities of temporary work agencies and those of routine cleaning of buildings that grew.

Only in the industry sector did the number of employees fall by 0.7% in one year.

Residents' growth exceeds that of cross-border workers

A rare occurence is that it isn’t the number of cross-border workers that has increased the most in a quarter (+0.8%), but that of residents (+1%). Even though, on an annual basis, it is the employment among residents that increases by 3%, compared with 4.5% for cross-border workers. French residents (+5.3% in one year) lead the way in terms of growth, followed by Belgian (+3.8%) and German (+3.5%) residents.

This articl in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.