Luxembourg's Economic Committee (Comité de conjoncture) met yesterday, Tuesday 19 December 2023, under the chairmanship of the Minister of the Economy, SMEs, Energy and Tourism, Lex Delles, and the Minister of Labour, Georges Mischo.
During its session, the committee first analysed the national economic situation and that of the labour market for the month of November 2023. The committee then studied the forecast requests for partial unemployment for the month of January 2024. The number of requests submitted increased by 10 units compared to the previous month. In total, 116 companies submitted a provisional request for partial unemployment in order to benefit from the provisions of this measure for the aforementioned month; the final decision on the allocation of this support rests with the Governing's cabinet.
After analysing the files submitted, the committee ruled favourably on 84 requests. Among these requests, 66 are from a cyclical source, nine are from a structural source, i.e. they are linked to a job retention plan, nine requests are motivated by a link of economic dependence. The number of employees concerned amounts to 8,045 full-time equivalent jobs (FTE) compared to 8,140 the previous month.
According to the Ministry of Finance, these figures are indicative and concern the forecast number of employees impacted, they therefore do not represent a concrete indicator of the economic situation. This is why the Economic Committee also provides information on the number of employees who actually benefited from the measure. This assessment can be done three months after the forecast requests made upstream. Once a forecast request has been favourably notified, companies have two months to submit a count of actual non-working hours to ADEM.
Concerning therefore, the requests for partial unemployment for the month of September 2023, notified during the committee of the month of August 2023, out of the 77 forecast requests advised favourably, 50 of them actually resorted to partial unemployment, including 14 files are currently still under investigation; therefore bringing the number of acquitted cases to 36.
In total, of these 36 counts, out of 9,872 FTEs (full time equivalents) announced forecastly for the month of September 2023, currently 1,707 employees, compared to 1,320 in August 2023, are actually unemployed. This represents 373 FTEs.
The actual non-working hours declared for the month of September 2023 amount to 64,507, compared to 57,777 the previous month (August 2023).
The cost for the employment fund for the month of September 2023 amounts to 722,500 euros, compared to 1,180,000 euros in August 2023.
Furthermore, the Economic Committee advised four job retention plans, three of which were favorable and one unfavourable, and refused four recovery plans.
Finally, the Economic Committee issued two positive opinions in relation to the legal provisions regarding early retirement-adjustment concerning a total of 25 employees. The Committee proposed a rate of participation in the cost of early retirement for each of the files.
