Luxembourg managed to add to its growing population while the rest of the European Union continued to shed inhabitants, data from the bloc’s statistics agency showed on Monday.
The Grand Duchy gained more than 10,000 residents in 2021, while the EU overall lost 170,000 inhabitants, Eurostat said.
It is the second consecutive year that the bloc’s population is falling, largely due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 446 million people live in the 27-country bloc, according to Eurostat.
In total, 10 countries recorded a decrease in population, with the largest drop reported in Italy with more than 250,000 people. The population grew in the other 17 EU countries, with the largest rise in France (185,900) and the smallest in Estonia (1,700).
Most of the increases were due to immigration, Eurostat said. Populations grew naturally in just eight member states, including Luxembourg where there were 2,000 more births than deaths in 2021.
Luxembourg’s population reached pre-pandemic levels at the end of last year, the national statistics agency Statec said in April, counting over 645,000 residents.
The Grand Duchy’s population is one of the youngest in the EU with an average age of 39, Eurostat said earlier this year. The country has the second lowest number of over-65s as a proportion of its population in the bloc, according to a separate Eurostat study last year.
The relatively small percentage of pensioners in the Grand Duchy can most likely be attributed to the country’s appeal to those of working age.
Luxembourg’s prominent position as a financial capital, together with its buoyant job market, high salaries and standard of living continue to attract immigrants from elsewhere in Europe and around the globe.
At the end of last year, Luxembourg City’s population stood at just under 130,000, with the number of people living in the capital increasing by more than 40% in a decade. There are 167 different nationalities in the city and seven out of every 10 inhabitants were not born in the Grand Duchy.
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