114 Companies Granted Partial Unemployment for April 2024

Luxembourg's Ministry of the Economy has confirmed that the Economic Committee (Comité de Conjoncture) met on Monday 25 March 2024, under the chairmanship of the Minister of the Economy, SMEs, Energy and Tourism, Lex Delles, and the Minister of Labour, Georges Mischo.

During its meeting, the Economic Committee first analysed the national economic situation and that of the labour market for the month of February 2024.

The Economic Committee then studied the forecast requests for partial unemployment for the month of April 2024. The number of requests submitted decreased by four units compared to the previous month. In total, 145 companies submitted a provisional request for partial unemployment in order to benefit from the provisions of this measure for the month in question; the final decision on the allocation of this support rests with the Government Council (cabinet).

After analysing the submitted files, the Economic Committee ruled favourably on 114 requests. Among these requests, 95 arose from a cyclical source including 46 from the construction sector, ten were linked to a structural source, i.e. a job retention plan, and nine requests were motivated by a link of economic dependence. The number of employees concerned amounts to 9,093 full-time equivalent jobs, compared to 7,920 the previous month.

The ministry stressed that these figures are indicative and concern the forecast number of impacted employees. They therefore do not represent a concrete indicator of the economic situation. Consequently, 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 the ADEM employment agency.

Concerning the requests for partial unemployment for the month of December 2023, notified during the committee for the month of November 2023: out of the 86 forecast requests advised favourably, just 59 actually resorted to partial unemployment, of which seven files remain currently still under investigation - thus bringing the number of actual cases to 52.

Of these 52 cases, out of 9,870 beneficiaries forecast for the month of December 2023, currently 1,615 employees (compared to 3,151 in November 2023) were actually unemployed. This represents 308 full-time equivalent jobs.

The actual unemployed hours declared for the month of December 2023 amounted to 53,280, compared to 104,014 in November 2023.

The cost for the Employment Fund for the month of December 2023 therefore amounted to €1,062,784, compared to €2,840,000 in November 2023.

Moreover, the Economic Committee announced three job retention plans, two of which were favourably reviewed and one suspended, pending additional information.

The next meeting of the Economic Committee will take place exceptionally on Friday 19 April 2024.