Unemployment has been steadily declining in Luxembourg for the last 27 months, though not uniformly among all affected groups prompting the Ministry of Labour to initiate a process for combatting long-term unemployment.
The long-term unemployed who have been seeking work for more than a year, especially those over 50 or who have health problems, have missed out on the upswing. This trend is not unique to Luxembourg and can also be seen in Germany, France, Austria and Belgium.
“As a socially responsible society, we cannot accept that a growing number of people are slipping into precarious circumstances, without hope of ever getting out again," said Labour Minister Nicolas Schmit. "As the usual mechanisms and measures of employment promotion do not seem to work, we have to take new paths to bring back as many people as possible from long-term unemployment to permanent employment and not only to give them new career prospects but also to give them their dignity.“
As long-term unemployment is particularly high in the south of the country, a concrete pilot project is to be launched in cooperation with the community code PRO-SUD to effectively combat long-term unemployment. "In the first phase, I see considerable opportunities in the public and community sectors. We do not want to generate sham jobs or precarious jobs, but we also want to generate additional, needs-oriented and long-term jobs, "said Minister Schmit. It underlines the need to avoid competition with private companies.
"Today, we have agreed on a common, strict and ambitious approach to quickly achieve initial success. Municipalities will identify short-term working conditions. The Ministry of Labor, Employment, Social Affairs and Solidarity will very soon be submitting a draft law which stipulates the legal basis, the conditions and funding of this initiative. Our goal is ambitious: we want the first new employment contracts to be concluded at the beginning of September," said Minister Schmit.
