How a country of 680,000 has built a workforce spanning 170+ nationalities
With skills shortages continuing to make recruitment difficult for businesses across Europe, employers are increasingly looking beyond their own borders to find the talent they need. Yet many companies remain reluctant to recruit internationally, with concerns around immigration, employment law, administration and managing employees across different countries.
According to global Employer of Record (EOR) specialist Agility EOR, employers could learn from Luxembourg, where international recruitment has long been part of everyday working life.
Despite having a population of just over 680,000, Luxembourg has one of Europe’s most international workforces. Almost half of its residents are foreign nationals, with around 180 nationalities represented across the country.
The country’s workforce also extends well beyond its borders. More than 228,000 cross-border workers travel into Luxembourg from France, Germany and Belgium to work, meaning businesses routinely operate across different languages, borders and employment systems.
The Luxembourg model offers an interesting contrast to the challenges facing businesses elsewhere in Europe, as a recent survey found that nearly half of European SMEs struggle to attract workers with the right skills. Yet among those polled, only 14 percent had attempted to recruit workers from outside the EU in the previous two years, and more than half described the process as difficult, citing administrative and immigration procedures as the most common barrier.
Scott Winter, Chief HR Officer at Agility EOR, commented: “Many companies are only just seeing international hiring as the future, where Luxembourg has been treating it as the present for years.
“As businesses increasingly look overseas for talent, there’s a great deal they can learn from Luxembourg’s vast experience. Luxembourg has demonstrated that employing people across borders can be part of how a business operates, but the challenge is ensuring they have the right structures and local knowledge in place to do so.”
Luxembourg’s multilingual workforce is another defining feature of its labour market. French, German and Luxembourgish all play an important role, while English is also widely used, particularly within international organisations and sectors such as finance, technology and professional services. The country is also heavily reliant on international workers, with foreign workers accounting for around three quarters of its workforce.
Scott concluded: “For businesses facing skills shortages, looking beyond the domestic talent pool can open up new opportunities. But doing so successfully means understanding the markets you’re hiring into and getting the employment details right from the outset.”
For more information about Agility EOR, visit www.agilityeor.com/countries/eor-luxembourg
