The job market in Luxembourg is a complex one. Cross-border workers make up 47% of Luxembourg’s work force, while residents and permanent residents make up the other 53% – one in four of which are citizens. The makeup is further complicated by a high number of locals who study or reside overseas.
One thing that’s clear is that job seeking and unemployment remains an evergreen hot topic in the Grand Duchy, with several talking points dominating recent headlines: While touted as a talent hub, and one that aims to fill 335,000 positions by 2040, the employment rate in Luxembourg ranked among the lowest in Europe last year, reporting a sharp drop in employment at the end of 2025, even as quality of quality of work falls to a record low.
The Luxembourgish government has introduced a new recruitment strategy to attract international talent. Meanwhile, the latest figures count more than 21,000 job seekers in Luxembourg, the highest since March 2021.
Yet hiring in Luxembourg shouldn’t be hard, according to Breanna Schaefer-O’Reilly, Country Manager for Select HR. “We have so much talent here,” she said. “But I think a lot of people are overlooked or not considered because they don’t fit into this fine, small, little box that companies are looking for.”
The quest to find that perfect employee is one that leaves both hiring employers and job-seeking employees searching.
Often, Schaefer-O’Reilly said, it comes down to the slightest advantage. “In Luxembourg we have so many qualified people applying for the same job. It’s just the smallest difference: Whether they’ve had exposure to a technical skill, or they speak another language, or they’ve been in a job for two years longer.”
But this focus on finding perfection can also lead to overlooking talent that’s ready and able.
“You have so much talent that is available and looking, but they might be 10,000 euros out of budget. They might have two years more than what you’re looking for,” she said. “Or they might not have the exact profile, and a lot of companies fail to look at the transferable skills, they can’t see past the checklist.”
This scrutiny doesn’t necessarily apply in all directions: “When it comes to senior management roles in Luxembourg, if anything I would say people aren’t cautious enough,” she added.
“A lot of companies overlook the importance of culture, and the importance of emotional intelligence. I always tell my clients: you can teach some of the technical parts if they don’t have all of them. But, hire for soft skills, and I promise, you will be much better off long term.”
Darren Robinson, Founding and Managing Partner of Anderson Wise Recruitment & Executive Search, identified Luxembourg’s recruitment issues as a mismatch.
“I’d call it a precision problem,” he said. “The challenge here is that employers look at really narrow skill sets: whether it’s the sector experience, the exact tools they’re looking for, the exact languages. And they are looking for them immediately, so they become even more precise.”
Robinson said that results in overlooking the pool of the 20,000 local candidates who are qualified: “You’ve got very capable people. They don’t tick every box on paper, but they could perform well with some realistic expectations, with some light upskilling.”
“I’ve been in the industry for 30 years, so I think I can speak with some authority that there isn’t a talent shortage,” Robinson stressed. “There never was one. There’s just a shortage of companies worth joining.”
One measurable challenge that job-seekers face today is the time it takes from interest to hire.
“I remember six years ago, pre-COVID, the typical time to hire – from the date the company contacted you to the day the candidate signed – could be between three to four weeks,” said Schaefer-O’Reilly. “Now we see it from six to eight weeks. By the time you get to the end, say, you’ve got three candidates, two of them have already found another position.”
“If you’re not lean in your interview process, you’re going to lose really good candidates to competitors because nobody’s just sitting around for eight weeks hoping to get a job.”
Unlike the Netherlands or the UK where up to 80% of roles are found through recruiters, the recruitment industry in Luxembourg operates very differently, said Robinson.
“[Recruitment] still only represents less than 5% of all the moves in Luxembourg, and that’s mainly because of proximity,” he said. “Everybody knows everybody.”
“The first thing people [looking to hire] will do is ask, who do I know? Who do my colleagues know? Who do my friends know? And, when they’ve run out of options, then they go to a recruiter,” Robinson said. Or, if someone is needed, fast.
In the case of an urgent need to fill a role, employers are even more likely to insist on a candidate that checks all the boxes. But trying to get things done faster comes with its own challenges.
Robinson has no praise for a recent and common form of interviewing: through one-way video.
“It’s almost the easiest HR tool ever because the HR or hiring manager doesn’t need to be there,” he said. “But it’s so impersonal. And candidates that come across on video well are more likely to get the role, rather than the person that can actually do the role.”
“I know a lot of people that don’t perform well in front of a camera – especially when they’re not interacting with somebody there.”
Another big red flag: an absolute lack of response.
“Companies really do need to get their act together because I think it’s totally disrespectful,” said Robinson. “There’s no excuse for not getting a response these days. Even an automated email is at least a response, I don’t think there’s any excuse for zero response.”
He added that besides improving the hiring process, another way forward is for employers to enhance their employee value proposition. “Whether it’s good or bad, reputation travels fast. And I think that respectful communication is not just ethical, it’s strategic. It only takes one person to say something poor about your brand, and that travels.”
Speaking to job seekers and recruiters alike, one word and harmful practice continues to surface: Ghosting. This applies to both being ghosted by employers during the hiring process, and ‘ghost posts’, or posts that are posted on platforms such as LinkedIn with no real intention of hiring.
Schaefer-O’Reilly said that at times, companies post jobs “for no reason”.
“Either it’s a recruitment company posting jobs just to make it look like they’re busy on the market when they’re not, or it’s a company who’s posting jobs just to make it seem like they’re growing or doing well, even if they’re not,” she said.
Beyond the disappointment that such ghost posts bring to the hundreds of candidates who apply, such tactics don’t do the company or the recruitment agencies any favours, either.
“It’s 300 people who took the time to amend their CV, to make a cover letter, to have hope, to actually have the courage to apply, and then to sit there and wait for no response,” Schaefer-O’Reilly continued. “It’s extremely damaging, and it’s just going to damage their reputation.”
For job seekers, while the dominant language at any workplace varies greatly, a lack of French, German, or Luxembourgish adds another disadvantage to an already competitive market.
Adam, who moved to Luxembourg with his partner over three years ago, has been struggling to land interviews. His only job offer was, after three months of interviews, withdrawn over WhatsApp.
“I am a seasoned and certified senior project manager with 15 years of experience in various industries. I have two master degrees – including an EMBA from one of the [most prestigious] programs in the world,” he shared.
“I have sent hundreds of applications in Luxembourg, participated in job fairs, tried to network, and nothing. But to be fair, I don’t speak German or French.”
For now, Adam has managed to find work with various entities and projects registered overseas.
“I think we missed a trick after Brexit,” said Robinson. “We could have been one of the countries that offered English as a legal language, and we didn’t capitalise on that. [Now] the Chamber of Commerce is endorsing English as a fourth legal language, and this is something I think is a very positive step.”
Others remain skeptical.
Terri Allington moved to Luxembourg in 2014 for a two-year contract with an international financial institution that ended up lasting 11 years. Following burnout, she started looking for other work. “I applied for so many jobs, and have only had interviews with four,” she said.
One that stands out most is an interview with an in-house recruiter.
“The interview was partially in English, partially in French,” recalled Allington, who speaks English, French, and some Dutch. “And the recruiter for this English-speaking company came back to me and said I wouldn’t fit with the team because I sound too British.”
Allington has since shifted her efforts to starting a charity and setting up a Social impact company (SIS) that focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) audits for companies, as well as helping newcomers navigate life in Luxembourg.
While both recruitment and jobs in Luxembourg focus on the financial industry, Schaefer-O’Reilly, who works across numerous industries, said that building a relationship with someone you trust pays off in the long run.
“Jobs come up so quickly, so being able to trust that someone’s going to call you when something comes up and it’s not yet being advertised, that’s really a big strength,” she explained.
Sharing some insider advice, she said: “If you’re depending solely on job advertisements, I can tell you there’s about 50% of the jobs in Luxembourg that are not being advertised.”
Often, employers work directly with recruiters and for a variety of reasons do not share the post on the usual platforms: “Someone’s being let go and they can’t advertise anything, or a team is expanding but hasn’t been officially signed off on yet,” said Schaefer-O’Reilly. “A lot of the time, nothing’s published on their website, not even on LinkedIn. They just come to us to help them find the right profile.”
Knowing where to look and where to be found are equally important: Rather than tailoring CVs with keywords, trying to beat algorithms, or writing InMail messages to get noticed, she suggests connecting with recruiters or HR personnel directly. One way to do that is to engage with their posts.
“They’re much more likely to read your comment out of the 20 comments they’re getting, than the 800 messages they get in a week. So, try to be visible.”
Robinson agreed. “The job market is huge in Luxembourg. And the only way you’ll get to uncover it is by making sure that you’ve got a really good online profile that people see regularly.”
Offline, it’s important to mix with the right circles at the right events – and he says there are plenty of events in Luxembourg to participate in. For those to whom networking doesn’t come naturally? “Buddy up with somebody and go!” he advised.
For a small and densely connected society like Luxembourg, there’s no hiding the fact that personal connections go a long way. The best advice, Robinson said, is to uncover whether there’s someone in the organisation that you already know, or that someone you know knows.
“So when you do have to make that application, and you might be one out of a thousand, at least there’s somebody else within the organisation who sent a message to the recruitment department to say, ‘By the way, this individual has applied. Could you at least make sure that you view and respond appropriately?’”
