A job advert in French does not, on its own, tell you which languages an employer will expect you to use day to day. This is one of the key distinctions in figures published by Luxsearch in November 2026: the language of the advert, the language a recruiter declares in a dedicated field, and the language they state is mandatory in the text do not measure the same thing.
For people looking for a job in Luxembourg, this distinction changes how to read a figure that is often repeated: “more than one job in two” requires German or Luxembourgish. This finding is indeed in the study, but it concerns a specific set of vacancies published by ADEM on EURES and declared requirements from B1 level upwards. It does not describe all vacancies in the country.
Three ways of counting languages
Luxsearch’s report analyses two distinct sets of data. The first comprises 7 615 vacancies first published on EURES between 1 January and 7 October 2026. These vacancies include a field in which the employer states the languages and a level. In this series, 51,6 % of jobs mention German or Luxembourgish from B1 level upwards. B1 corresponds to a basic level of proficiency that allows people, among other things, to understand everyday exchanges, without implying professional fluency in every situation.
The second set comprises 8 054 jobs identified on various websites and careers pages between 9 October and 8 November. Here, the study examines the text of the adverts. German or Luxembourgish is explicitly required in 21,2 % of jobs, while a further 18,1 % present one of these languages as an advantage or as one of several possible languages. These categories should not be added together without care: an advantage is not a mandatory condition.
The wording also matters. An advert written in French may imply that an understanding of French is expected, but it does not prove that French is the only language needed for the job. In the survey of online adverts, 64,2 % of jobs require French or are advertised in French. After weighting according to the structure of ADEM’s occupational groups, this share reaches 70,5 %.
The gap between the employer’s form and the advert text
For the 7 615 vacancies in the EURES sample, employers indicate French at B1 level or above for 79,2 % of jobs, English for 63,2 %, German for 47 % and Luxembourgish for 32,1 %. But in the text of these same adverts, German is mentioned as mandatory in only 17,1 % of cases, and Luxembourgish in 14,7 %.
This gap does not necessarily mean that adverts are concealing a requirement. ADEM’s language field indicates the languages associated with a job and their level, without distinguishing between mandatory and desirable. The text, meanwhile, may not detail every expectation. When applying, it is therefore better to treat a language explicitly required as a stated condition, a language presented as an advantage as a plus, and general information about the market as a guide, not as a hiring decision.
French remains the language most frequently listed in ADEM’s data. It is required at B1 level or above in nearly four out of five vacancies, and C1 is specified for 43,6 % of jobs. For English, the share at B1 level or above is 63,2 %, of which 44,5 % are at C1 level. German and Luxembourgish are more often associated with B1 than C1: 16,9 % and 9,8 % of jobs respectively specify C1 level or above.
The sector changes the picture
The national average masks very different needs across occupations. In healthcare professions, the study records German at B1 level or above for 90,4 % of jobs and Luxembourgish for 86,3 %. A requirement for one or the other language applies to 95 % of vacancies in the group. French is also very common, at 96,9 %.
In personal and community services, Luxembourgish appears in 58,7 % of vacancies and German in 67 %. Retail also has multilingual requirements: 89,3 % of jobs mention French, 65,9 % English, 59,4 % German and 40,6 % Luxembourgish. These percentages may overlap, as a single job may require several languages.
By contrast, banking, insurance and property roles bring English to the fore: it is required in 98 % of vacancies in the group, while Luxembourgish appears in 14,1 %. In IT and telecommunications, the corresponding shares are 93,8 % for English and 20,2 % for Luxembourgish. These figures can help focus a job search, but they do not replace reading each job description.
Geography also plays a part. Among vacancies linked to a municipality in the east, 59,8 % require German or Luxembourgish; nearly half are written in one of these two languages. In the canton of Esch, in the south, 71,4 % of adverts are in French. The location of the workplace can therefore point to useful languages, but does not allow us to conclude that all employers in a region recruit in the same way.
A market viewed through several lenses
The 8 054 jobs online do not constitute a census of all vacancies. They include jobs advertised on several platforms and jobs that may have been filled during the period. The study removes duplicates across sites, but the same opportunity may still be advertised by both the employer and a recruitment agency. Nor do the vacancies identified cover occupations uniformly: IT and banking are more heavily represented than in the stock of jobs declared to ADEM, while construction, hospitality and social occupations carry less weight.
To correct this imbalance in part, Luxsearch weights the results according to the distribution of occupational groups in ADEM’s data. This brings the share of vacancies explicitly requiring French down to 35,7 % and that of English to 35,4 %, compared with 36,7 % and 44,6 % in online adverts. Weighting rebalances the major occupational groups; it does not make the vacancies observed identical to all job vacancies.
The study also notes an increase in the share of EURES vacancies listing Luxembourgish at B1 level or above: 24,5 % in 2021, compared with 32,1 % in 2026. But this aggregate increase does not mean that every employer is strengthening this requirement. Among 367 employers that published vacancies in both periods compared, the average proportion of their jobs mentioning Luxembourgish remains at 27 %. The employers contributing to the sample and the composition of the jobs published have changed.
For a job search, the data therefore provide guidance, not a universal filter. The job title, duties, contact with the public, required language level and wording such as “mandatory”, “desirable” or “an advantage” all need to be considered for each job. A national figure can indicate a need; it is the specific advert that shows what the employer requires for that application.
References
A job interview. Illustration.
