A report released Tuesday by statistics portal STATEC and the Agence pour le développement de l'emploi (ADEM) has shown that the number of job seekers in February 2016 dropped 6.0% compared to the previous year.
After January 2016's 0.2% drop in the Luxembourg unemployment rate marked the largest annual decline in ADEM jobseekers since March 2008, the rate has remained at 6.5% the following month. The number of available resident jobseekers registered with the employment agency stood at 17,945 on 29 February 2016, demonstrating a decline of 1,154, or 6.0%, in a year.
This change has been particularly perceptible within the under-30s demographic, which saw numbers fall by 8.7% YoY, compared with the 2.7% decline experienced amongst job seekers aged 50 and over. Men also appeared to benefit more from the decline in unemployment, at -8.9% against -2.9% for women. Meanwhile, the number of long-term unemployed, define by a period greater than 12 months, also fell 4.1%.
In February 2016, 1,783 people registered with ADEM, which showed an increase of 97 people compared to February 2015. However, the number of recipients of full unemployment benefits fell by 672 people to 7,257 during this annual period. By the end of February 2016, 5,498 people were assigned to an employent measure, up by 171 compared to the same month of the previous year.
The number of vacancies reported by employers to ADEM also improved, growing 20.7% YoY to 3,279 in February 2016. 4,000 available posts were uploaded to ADEM's new online platform, JobBoard, earlier this month.
