Luxembourg’s jobs market showed further signs of slowdown in the second quarter, with the number of people in employment increasing by just 0.5% from the opening three months of the year, national statistics agency Statec said on Thursday.
The economy ministry on the same day said more than 100 firms had requested assistance from a government aid scheme, and just last week separate Statec data showed the country’s unemployment rate had risen again last month, and now stands at 5.3%.
The latest survey shows the bulk of job growth in the second quarter was driven by increased hiring in the public sector, up 0.8%, and the financial and insurance industries, which expanded by 0.9%.
Overall job growth has risen by 2.5% since the same period last year but is slowing down. Between the first quarter of this year and the same period in 2022, the job market grew 2.9%.
However, the construction sector experienced another decline, with employment down by 0.5% in the second quarter compared to three months previously. The sector saw the largest loss of jobs of any industry, Statec said.
There were more than 100 bankruptcies in the construction industry in the first six months of this year, almost double the amount from 2022, Statec said in July, resulting in the loss of around 470 jobs.
There was a rise in the number of firms in Luxembourg requesting short-term unemployment benefits (chômage partiel) for staff in August, with 101 companies seeking assistance – 13 more than the previous month – the economy ministry said in a press release on Thursday.
The scheme sees the state pays 80% of a worker’s salary, capped at up to two and a half times the minimum wage.