ADEM: Number of Jobseekers Rose by 15.5%, Vacancies Fell by 36% in 2023

On Tuesday 4 June 2024, Luxembourg employment agency ADEM presented its annual report for 2023.

During a press conference held in the presence of Georges Mischo, Luxembourg's Minister of Labour, ADEM Director Isabelle Schlesser presented the 2023 annual report and provided an overview of the implementation of the ADEM 2025 strategy, which was initiated two years ago.

According to ADEM, although there has been a slight improvement since the first half of this year and the Luxembourg job market continues to grow, the figures for 2023 showed a clear slowdown in this development. The employment agency noted that economic uncertainties, sectoral difficulties and recruitment problems have impacted the job market in Luxembourg, as elsewhere in Europe.

Last year, many indicators remained at half-mast, including an unemployment rate of 5.5% as of 31 December - up 0.7 percentage points over one year. However, this was still below that of the eurozone (6.4%).

"The increase in the number of jobseekers - 15.5% over one year - was correlated with a clear decline in the number of available positions, with a 36% decrease in job offers submitted to ADEM," explained Isabelle Schlesser. This decline particularly impacted professions related to business consulting (-60%), IT (-56%), transport and logistics (-53%), Horesca (-45.5) and construction (-45%).

"We must pursue an innovative employment policy, to promote the resilience of the job market with proactive adaptation to new challenges," noted Minister Mischo. "The talent shortage, the skills gap and our collective efforts to keep people employed are the concerns of government, business and our society."

With this in mind, the minister welcomed the efforts of ADEM to analyse the job market in more detail - one of the key objectives of the ADEM 2025 strategy over the past two years. The publication of ten sectoral studies and the Jobinsights.lu dashboard thus constitute "important instruments" for better understanding future skills needs and developing a tailor-made training offer.

The Ministry of Labour and ADEM are also involved in the implementation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Skills Strategy project in Luxembourg.

For Isabelle Schlesser, it is essential that ADEM sticks to its strategic objective of "knowing its customers better, to better serve them and target its efforts". For example, language tests are now compulsory for everyone registering with ADEM, with the aim of better guiding them in terms of training, if necessary, and to let recruiters know about candidates' skills. Since July last year, more than 12,000 jobseekers have been tested and more than 30,500 tests have been carried out.

In order to remedy the talent shortage on the Luxembourg job market, ADEM has strengthened its training actions. Since 2019, the share of jobseekers who have followed training courses in the last twelve months has quadrupled. In 2023, almost 5,200 jobseekers had benefited from at least one training course (vs 3,434 in 2022) and nearly 6,600 participations were recorded in total (vs 3,943 in 2022).

In parallel with programmes in training centres and the development of collaborations with its partners, ADEM is also expanding its online course offering. The free provision of licences for eLearning language learning, as part of a partnership with Babbel, has thus met with "considerable success", with 4,800 licences to be distributed.

From the perspective of upskilling and reskilling, learning has also become a springboard that is attracting more and more adults, according to ADEM. In 2023, the number of adult apprenticeship placements reached a historic peak, with more than 1,000 apprenticeship contracts established.

ADEM also emphasised the need to attract foreign talent for highly specialised profiles eagerly sought by employers, particularly for professions with severe labour shortages. The facilitating effects of the new immigration law, aimed at simplifying and accelerating the recruitment of third-country nationals, are already yielding "good results".

"Between its entry into force on 1 September and the end of December 2023, 1,445 certificates were issued to employers and three-quarters of them (77.2%) relate to professions in very short supply," stated Isabelle Schlesser. "The law did not lead to an increase in their numbers, but it allowed employers to hire the qualified labour they needed more quickly."

In order to best serve its clients and to be a "modern and responsive" agency, ADEM is also continuing to digitalise its services and processes. "We offer a wide range of digital services, to give more autonomy to jobseekers and employers who wish for this. This also frees up internal resources to devote more time to people further from the job market, for example coaching for young jobseekers without professional plans," added the ADEM Director. The share of digital approaches is constantly increasing and the range of services available online will continue to expand in the coming months and years.

Procedures carried out online in 2023:

- online registrations: 24% (18% in 2022);
- declaration of vacancies by employers: 36% (29% in 2022);
- requests for professional training aid: 88.6% (76.7% in 2022);
- 28,900 candidates  (25,300 in 2022) used the ADEM JobBoard and downloaded more than 15,000 CVs (8,400 in 2022).

Moreover, ADEM opted this year to present its 2023 annual report in a new format, in the form of a website: https://adem2023.lu/.