21,038 Jobseekers and an Unemployment Rate Stable at 6.3%

As of 28 February 2026, ADEM recorded 21,038 resident jobseekers available for work and registered, representing an increase of 1,578 people compared with February 2025 (+8.1% year‑on‑year).

As in previous months, this rise particularly concerns the most highly qualified jobseekers (+16.0%). However, from an age‑group perspective, the trend appears more homogeneous, with year‑on‑year increases of around 8% across all three age brackets (under 30, 30–44, and 45 and over). In terms of occupations sought, the patterns observed over recent months remain unchanged: the sharpest increases relate to secretarial and administrative support roles (ROME category M16), IT roles (M18), and accounting roles (M12).

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, calculated by STATEC, stands at 6.3%.

The number of new registrations of resident jobseekers increased by 1.6% year‑on‑year: 2,553 residents registered in February 2026 compared with 2,512 in February 2025.

As of 28 February 2026, the number of resident jobseekers receiving full unemployment benefits stood at 10,234, marking a 9.7% decrease over one year¹.
The number of resident jobseekers with occupational redeployment status who receive a waiting allowance or a professional waiting allowance stands at 1,632, equivalent to a 7.7% year‑on‑year increase².

The number of residents benefiting from an employment support measure amounts to 4,449, a figure that remains almost unchanged (+0.5%) compared with February 2025.

Regarding non‑residents, ADEM recorded 4,246 registered non‑resident jobseekers at the end of February, representing a 24.5% year‑on‑year increase. Among them, 56.8% have external occupational redeployment status and are therefore eligible, under the same conditions as residents, for financial assistance paid by ADEM. For this group, the number of registered individuals has risen by 10.9% over one year. The second category of non‑resident jobseekers consists of individuals who register purely voluntarily, without receiving financial assistance. This category accounts for 1,834 individuals as at 28 February 2026, or 43.2% of all non‑resident jobseekers. The increase in this group continues to be particularly marked—consistent with previous months—and now stands at 48.5% compared with February 2025.

A total of 904 non‑residents registered as new jobseekers in February 2026, representing a 21.7% year‑on‑year increase.

As of 28 February 2026, 1,086 non‑resident jobseekers with external occupational redeployment status received full unemployment benefits, a slight decrease of 0.7% over one year. In addition to those receiving full unemployment benefits, 1,808 non‑resident jobseekers with external occupational redeployment status received a waiting allowance or a professional waiting allowance as at the same date, representing a 7.8% increase year‑on‑year.

In February 2026, employers declared 3,371 vacancies to ADEM, a decrease of 3.2% compared with February 2025. The stock of available job offers at the end of February 2026 stood at 6,810 positions, representing a 5.4% decline over one year. Accounting roles (ROME M12), finishing trades (F16) and secretarial/administrative support roles (M16) recorded the largest decreases compared with the previous year.

[1] See methodological note on completeness and consistency of data relating to recipients of full unemployment benefit, waiting allowance and professional waiting allowance at the end of this press release.

[2] See aforementioned note.

• An available resident jobseeker is a person registered with ADEM who resides on Luxembourg territory and who on the date of the statistical statement is neither in employment, nor assigned to an employment measure, nor on sickness or maternity leave.
• A resident jobseeker is a person registered with ADEM who resides in Luxembourg and who, on the date of the statistical report, is assigned to an employment measure.
• An available non-resident jobseeker is a person registered with ADEM who does not reside in Luxembourg and who, on the date of the statistical report, is neither in employment, nor assigned to an employment measure, nor on sickness or maternity leave.
• A jobseeker with reduced capacity for work is a person who benefits from an external reclassification decision pursuant to articles L.551-1 et seq. of the Labour Code.
• A recipient of full unemployment benefit is a person who is registered with ADEM and who is receiving benefit under article L. 521-1 et seq. of the Labour Code.
• A beneficiary of a waiting allowance or a waiting professional allowance is a person registered with ADEM and receiving compensation under application of article L. 551-5 of the Labour Code.
• The unemployment rate is the ratio between the number of available resident jobseekers and the resident active population.

Methodological Note: Recalculation of Recipients of Full Unemployment Benefit and Recipients of Waiting Allowance / Professional Waiting Allowance

The recording of the number of recipients of full unemployment benefit, waiting allowance and professional waiting allowance was affected by major changes to ADEM’s IT systems implemented in November 2025. For this reason, the publication of “key figures” in December 2025, January 2026 and February 2026 included a special note informing readers of impacts likely to persist for several months. The necessary adjustments were completed during March 2026, and the current publication is once again complete with respect to recipients of full unemployment benefit. Verification work regarding recipients of waiting allowance and professional waiting allowance is nearing completion, and minor adjustments may still be made in the coming weeks.

Furthermore, ADEM has revised its method for publishing data on recipients of financial assistance. Until now, it published at the end of each month the number of individuals compensated whose statistical date fell between the start and end dates of entitlement. However, this method did not allow for the inclusion of retroactive payments following a formal decision to grant the allowance. For example, a person eligible for full unemployment benefit in month M could formally receive authorisation in month M+1—after their file was processed—and therefore would not appear in the statistics for month M. Going forward, ADEM will revise retroactively each month’s number of recipients of financial assistance.

To ensure improved statistical consistency, a retrospective recalculation of the data has therefore been carried out. The statistical series relating to recipients of full unemployment benefit and recipients of waiting allowance / professional waiting allowance—dating back to 2006—have been revised to ensure more reliable reporting, including in cases of retroactive payments.

These data will now be updated retroactively each month and published on the Open Data platform.

More detailed interactive tables relating to the above data can be found in the ‘Key figures’ section of the ADEM website.

Raw data are also available on the Statistics Portal via the ‘Open Data’ portal.

The data for March 2026 will be published on 20 April 2026.