Generally speaking, foreign-born residents are most likely to find employment, though education levels play a role. Photo: Shutterstock

Generally speaking, foreign-born residents are most likely to find employment, though education levels play a role. Photo: Shutterstock

Foreigners in Luxembourg are more likely to have a job than natives, Eurostat said in a report published on 10 November, with the country bucking a European trend of locals having better chances at a job.

The showed that, in the EU, three out of four native-born people with a native or mixed background--between the ages of 20 and 64--were employed, whereas the rate went down for those native-born with a foreign background (71%) and foreign-born people (67%).

In Luxembourg, however, foreign-born people were more likely to have a job than all other migratory backgrounds.

Though most categories saw an increase in employment in Luxembourg--the country saw its despite the pandemic--foreign-born inhabitants have the highest employment rate at 73.4%, followed by natives with a native background (70.4%), and natives with a mixed background (65.1%). Natives with a foreign background, meaning second or later generation immigrants--have significantly lower chances of being hired in Luxembourg, with only 57% of employment.

In the EU, the educational background of migratory categories has an impact on differences in employment for middle and high levels of education, but not so much for lower education levels.

In Luxembourg, education played an important role in most cases: foreign-born people with a low education level (58%) fared better than natives with a native background (41.6%), mixed background (30.8%) and foreign background (27.6%).

For those with a middle level of education, being a native with native ancestry was more advantageous--72,5% employment-- than foreign-born inhabitants (68%) and those with a mixed (70.7%) or foreign background (62.7%).

In higher education, being native with a native background proved an advantage, with 88.7% of employment. Mixed background natives (86.2%) and foreign-born individuals (83.5%) followed closely whereas natives with a foreign background scored 10 percentage points lower than their fully native counterpart with 78.4%.

Overall, it appears that Luxembourg provides a welcoming employment environment for foreign-born residents, an unsurprising feat considering that Luxembourg nationals only made up 26.7% of domestic salaried employment.