(DP), newly appointed minister for the economy, SMEs, energy and tourism, and (CSV), minister for labour, chaired their first Comité de conjoncture (economic committee) meeting on 28 November 2023. Surrounded by representatives of the trade unions, various ministries, Luxembourg’s statistics bureau Statec, the Central Bank of Luxembourg and the Fédération des artisans, they evaluated the forecast requests for partial unemployment submitted for December 2023.

106 companies made such a request, three more than in October. The figure follows the upward trend of previous months: 75 companies submitted a provisional request for partial unemployment for August, 88 for September, 101 for October and 103 for November. “After analysing the applications submitted, the Comité de conjoncture gave a favourable ruling on 86 requests,” stated the government’s press release.

Of these, 63 were due to the economic climate, 14 due to structural reasons (linked to a job retention plan) and nine were due to economic dependency. A total of 8,140 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs could be affected, 4.7% fewer than the previous month (8,542 FTEs affected), although the number of forecast partial unemployment applications was lower.

The press release states, however, that “these figures are indicative and concern the forecast number of employees affected, and do not therefore represent a concrete indicator of the economic situation.” The business conditions committee also took the opportunity to revisit the figures for August 2023, which were seen at the July 2023 committee meeting, since the number of employees who actually benefited from the measure can be assessed three months after the forecast applications.

Figures for August

In August, “of the 67 provisional applications approved, 42 actually made use of partial unemployment, of which four are currently still being examined, bringing the number of approved applications to 38.” And of the 8,026 FTEs forecast for August 2023, 1,320 employees actually took time off, representing 334 FTEs. “The actual hours of unemployment declared for August 2023 came to 57,777, compared with 62,104 the previous month (July 2023),” the press release states, and “the cost to the employment fund for August 2023 came to €1.18m, compared with €1.4m in July 2023.”

Finally, the economic committee analysed two new job retention plans, which it chose to advise at the next committee meeting scheduled for 19 December 2023, “as a further study with the companies concerned is necessary.” It also “issued a positive opinion following a request for tax exemption for voluntary redundancy payments [...] concerning a total of 11 people.”

Under for when business picks up again and continues paying social security contributions. 

This article was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.