Luxembourg’s population growth is returning to pre-pandemic levels, with the total number of inhabitants reaching more than 645,000 last year, mostly driven by immigration, the country’s official statistics agency said on Monday.
In another indication of the country’s appeal to those of working age, Luxembourg added more than 9,000 people to its population total through net immigration in 2021. The easing of travel rules linked to Covid-19 lockdowns saw population growth move back towards levels seen prior to 2020.
Net immigration into Luxembourg accounted for close to 90% of all new additions last year, with natural population growth – the difference between births and deaths – responsible for the remainder.
“After a demographic slowdown observed in 2020, the population of the Grand Duchy increased by 10,667 people during the course of 2021, so that on 1 January 2022, 645,397 inhabitants were living in Luxembourg”, Statec said on Monday.
“This population increase, mainly due to net immigration, returns to levels close to those observed before the outbreak of the Covid-19 health crisis”, Statec said.
In percentage terms, the population increased by 1.7%. This increase is a little less than that observed before the pandemic, when it fluctuated between 2% and 2.5%, but is higher than that observed in 2020, the first year the pandemic hit Europe with accompanying restrictions on travel, when it was just 1.4%.
Luxembourg regularly ranks amongst the EU countries with the fastest population growth. The number of inhabitants in the Grand Duchy jumped by more than 20% – only one of four EU countries to see such an increase – between 2001 and 2020, according to the bloc’s statistics agency Eurostat.
Foreign residents are “significantly younger” than Luxembourgers, Statec said. The average age for Luxembourg women is 42.4 years compared to 38.1 years for foreign women. For Luxembourg men, the average age is 40 years compared to 38 years for foreign residents.
Luxembourg’s population is one of the youngest in the entire EU with an average age of just 39, Eurostat said earlier this year. The country has the second lowest number of over-65s as a proportion of its population in the entire 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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