Domestic payroll employment: +0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2024 and +1.0% over 12 months

As in previous quarters, quarterly growth in salaried employment was very moderate: +0.3% compared with the third quarter of 2024. The annual increase was 1%. Specialised and support services (+0.8%) and administration and other public services (+1.1%) showed the strongest quarterly growth compared with the third quarter of 2024. In contrast, the industrial, construction and information and communication sectors recorded a decline in the number of employees in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Specialised and support activities (+1.8% year-on-year) and administration and other public services (+4.0% year-on-year) were the most dynamic sectors in annual comparison. For the former, the favourable development was driven by head office activities. As for public administration and other public services, central government services recorded the strongest growth. Year-on-year, the construction sector saw a sharp decline of 4.3% in the number of employees. Residential and non-residential construction activities suffered the greatest job losses.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the number of resident employees grew at the same rate as that of cross-border workers (+0.3% compared with the third quarter of 2024). The number of German and Belgian cross-border workers fell compared with the fourth quarter of 2023 (-0.3% for German cross-border workers and -0.2% for those from Belgium).

Evolution of domestic payroll employment (compared to the previous quarter)

Source: STATEC, National Accounts, seasonally adjusted data

Evolution of domestic payroll employment

Methodological note :

Employment estimates are based on the national accounts concept and are drawn up in accordance with the European System of National and Regional Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010), which defines employment in accordance with International Labour Organisation (ILO) criteria.

Data on domestic salaried employment include all employees working on national territory, i.e. including cross-border employees living beyond the national border and coming to work in the Grand Duchy, and exclude resident employees working abroad and international civil servants residing in the country. The unit of measurement is the person. Thus, a person working part-time counts as one person, as does a person working two part-time jobs. Nor is there any conversion into full-time equivalents.

Estimates of employment in the national accounts may differ from those of other statistics, such as social security registrations published by the IGSS (which include employees who do not work on national territory and which do not distinguish by kind of economic activity unit), or surveys, in particular the Labour Force Survey (which does not include cross-border commuters).

The data are seasonally adjusted and subject to revision. For business cycle analysis and quarter-on-quarter changes, the data are seasonally adjusted, while year-on-year changes are calculated on the raw data. 

Long series, both unadjusted and seasonally adjusted, are available in the 'Labour market' section of the Statistics Portal.

The data is published once a quarter, 75 days after the end of the reference period (T+75 days).