Headline employment growth is masking a widening gap between the jobs being created and the people looking for work, according to a new Chamber of Employees analysis.
The Chamber of Employees, or CSL, found that more than 3,130 permanent jobs disappeared in 2025, while growth in fixed-term contracts alone kept net employment creation positive. Nearly one in three people registered with Adem had completed higher education, up from 19% in 2018, and the number of graduate jobseekers rose 13% in a single year.
“The quality of employment has undeniably deteriorated since 2022,” the report said.
Adem has separately echoed the mismatch, with Director Isabelle Schlesser telling Radio 100,7 on 31 July that jobseeker profiles and available vacancies were often far apart.
CSL’s analysis puts the average monthly number of resident jobseekers at 18,987 in 2025, 5% more than a year earlier. The number registered for more than a year rose 7%.
The report also finds a marked deterioration among graduates. Higher education still offers some protection—the unemployment rate was 5.4% in 2025, compared with 10.9% among people with lower-secondary education or less—but graduates were the only education group whose rate worsened from 2024, rising by 0.6 percentage points.
Jobs that do not match
CSL finds the mismatch particularly visible in business-support occupations. Jobseeker numbers in the field rose 13% in 2025, including increases of 29% in accounting and management and 25% in IT and telecommunications.
Employer demand moved the other way. Vacancies reported to Adem in business support fell 9%, including declines of 26% in accounting and management and 6% in IT and telecommunications.
Across the economy, new vacancies reported to Adem rose just 1% in 2025, while the number still available at month-end fell 7%. CSL finds that vacancy rates have generally been easing since 2022, although hiring pressures remain in parts of manufacturing, transport and warehousing.
Schlesser’s more recent comments reinforce that point. She told Radio 100,7 that vacancies had shown a modest improvement in recent months, but that this did not mean people registered with Adem could readily fill them.
“The profiles are often very far apart,” she said.
CSL’s figures show that long-term unemployment among graduates worsened in 2025. The number of higher-education graduates registered for at least a year rose 18% among those under 30, 19% among 30- to 44-year-olds and 24% among people aged 45 or over.
Less secure work
CSL also identified a deterioration in the type of employment being created.
Trade and vehicle repair and construction each recorded net losses of more than 1,000 permanent jobs over the year. The figures are net changes rather than a count of dismissals and can also reflect retirements, sickness-related departures or other exits that employers did not replace.
Public administration and health and social work were the only broad areas to record clear net job growth, partially offsetting weakness elsewhere.
The report also found a disconnect between economic output and employment. Financial and insurance activities generated 28% of Luxembourg’s gross value added in 2025 but accounted for only 11% of hours worked. In information and communications, output rose 4.2% from 2024 while hours worked fell 2.7%.
For CSL, the figures show why stronger economic output does not necessarily translate into stronger employment.
The chamber says it wants the follow-up committee created under June’s tripartite agreement to examine sector-specific redeployment and retraining units for industries facing restructuring or major job losses.
It also identified several reasons why vacancies can remain difficult to fill. Too few trained workers or mismatched skills may be part of the problem, but working hours, pay, physical demands, contract type and mobility can also make jobs unattractive.
The report concluded that the labour-market challenge is not only how many jobs are created, but whether they are durable and whether people looking for work can realistically move into them.
