Domestic payroll employment in the first quarter of 2026: +0.3% quarter-on-quarter, +1.5% year-on-year

Quarter-on-quarter growth in salaried employment remains moderate: +0.3% compared with the fourth quarter of 2025. Year-on-year, growth stands at 1.5% (the same as in the fourth quarter of 2025). As in previous quarters, it is the public administration and other public services sectors (+1.0% quarter-on-quarter) that are showing the strongest growth. As for the construction sector, the number of employees remained virtually stable in the first quarter of 2026 (+0.1% compared with the fourth quarter of 2025).

The administration and other public services sector continues to stand out as the most dynamic sector (+1.0% quarter-on-quarter, +4.3% year-on-year). It was primarily central government services and social welfare activities (excluding residential care) for the elderly and people with disabilities that recorded the strongest growth over the course of a year. Employment in the construction sector, having stabilised in the^fourthquarter, showed a slight increase in the^firstquarter (+0.1% quarter-on-quarter). However, it remains 0.9% lower than at the start of 2025 (other specialised construction activities suffered the greatest job losses over this period).

In the first quarter of 2026, the number of cross-border workers rose more sharply than that of residents (+0.6% compared with +0.1%). The number of German cross-border workers fell again by 0.2% compared with the fourth quarter of 2025, whilst the number of French cross-border workers rose by 1.1%.

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

Data on domestic salaried employment include all employees working in the national territory, including cross-border employees living beyond the national border and coming to work in the Grand Duchy, but excluding 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 employed in two part-time jobs. There is also no conversion to full-time equivalents.

Employment estimates in the national accounts may differ from those in other statistics, such as social security registrations published by the IGSS (which include employees who do not work in the national territory and do not distinguish by economic activity unit), or surveys, in particular the labour force survey (which does not cover cross-border workers).

The data are seasonally adjusted and subject to revision. For short-term analysis and quarter-on-quarter developments, the data are seasonally adjusted, while year-on-year changes are calculated on the basis of 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).