Short-time working

Please find hereunder some information about the short-time working for the employees. The Luxembourgish government is working actively on measures for independents workers. We will keep you updated as soon as possible.

What and why?

In order to protect jobs and thus prevent redundancies, the Luxembourg labour law allows businesses, under certain conditions, to resort to various short-time working schemes depending on the nature of the difficulties encountered.

Any business making use of short-time working due to an event of force majeure undertakes not to make employees redundant for economic reasons.

In the event of force majeure, who is concerned?

Short-time working in the event of force majeure can be applied to all employees with their place of work in Luxembourg, whether they are under a permanent employment contract or a fixed-term employment contract.

For employees who do not depend on Luxembourg social security, their employer will have to find out in the country they depend on.

Short-time working schemes cannot be applied to apprentices, to temporary workers or workers having tendered/received their notice.

Prerequisites for the companies to be qualified

To apply for short-time work in the event of force majeure, the business must:

• be established in Luxembourg;
• hold a business permit granted by the competent authority;
• be impacted by the economic or legal consequences of an external event which makes it impossible for the business to continue their normal economic activity;
• undertake to not dismiss any employee for economic reasons.

Maximum period of short-time working per employee

The permission to make use of the provisions concerning short-time working in case of force majeure can only be granted for a maximum of 1,022 hours per year and per full-time working employee.

Short-time working in the event of force majeure, take over and reimbursements

The State reimburses the employer 80 % of the salary normally received by each employee paid for the inactive hours up to a maximum of 250 % of the social minimum wage.

Payment of the salaries by the employer

The employer must pay the inactive hours at a minimum of 80 % of the salary normally received.

Reimbursement of the compensatory allowances paid by the state

Within 2 months following the month under short-time work, the employer must send the ADEM a monthly declaration of claim, the individual forms signed by the employees concerned by the short-time working and a statement of the amounts.

How to file an application

The business must submit its application for short-time work to the secretariat of the Economic Committee at the time of the occurrence of the facts, on the basis of a form provided for this purpose. In the case of force majeure due to the Coronavirus, the deadline does not apply.

The form must be duly signed by the business manager and by the staff delegation. If the company has less than 15 employees or does not have a staff delegation, each employee concerned must sign the form individually.

The dedicated form relate to the Coronavirus is available on the website of Guichet.lu: https://guichet.public.lu/fr/entreprises/sauvegarde-cessation-activite/sauvegarde-emploi/chomage-partiel-technique/force-majeure.html

The complete form can be send by email or per mail at the address below.

For more information, please contact:

Ministry of the Economy - Economic Committee

19-21, boulevard Royal

L-2914 Luxembourg

Hotline short-time working: 8002 9191

Fax: (+352) 46 04 48

Contact:

For more information about short-time working, please contact our Payroll experts, at the following email address: HRpayroll@lu.gt.com.