Salaried Employment: Up 0.3% in Q1 2020

Salaried employment in Luxembourg rose by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2020 and by 2.9% over twelve months, according to STATEC. 

This limited increase in the first quarter of the year (+0.3% compared to +0.8% the previous quarter) has been attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. While the evolution of salaried employment during the first two months of 2020 was comparable to that of 2019, confinement from mid-March 2020 slowed its progression.

Administration and other public services (+4.9% year-on-year), as well as construction activities (+3.9% year-on-year), were the most dynamic branches in the first quarter.

A decrease in the number of employees was observed for the “Specialised activities and support services” branch between the last quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020 (-2.1%) with a sharp drop in the number of employees for the activities of temporary employment agencies (-24.6% over one year). These activities tend to be the first to suffer when an economic crisis looms on the horizon, according to STATEC.

During this period, the number of cross-border workers increased by just 0.2% (compared to 1.0% the previous quarter). Among residents, the number of workers from the European Union (EU) decreased slightly by 0.1 %.