Improving the monitoring of jobseekers and employer practices at ADEM

Public petition n°3845

Petitioner: Grace Ndzeme Walker

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To request that the Luxembourg authorities and the National Employment Agency (ADEM) improve the monitoring of jobseekers and strengthen oversight of employer practices, in order to ensure that job referrals, interviews and Job Days are coherent, transparent and effective, and that publicly funded training programmes are accessible without requiring upfront payment.

Many jobseekers in Luxembourg face structural difficulties in their interaction with ADEM and with certain employer practices. These issues directly affect the effectiveness of employment policies, trust in public institutions and sustainable professional integration. The following observations concern a significant number of jobseekers across different sectors: -Jobseekers’ skills, qualifications and professional backgrounds are not always sufficiently taken into account. Some candidates are referred to fields unrelated to their experience or are refused registration in certain tertiary sectors on the grounds that they are considered “overqualified”. -Candidate files are sometimes insufficiently reviewed, leading to inappropriate job referrals, including referrals to employers where candidates have already worked or resigned. -Some training programmes financed by ADEM currently require full payment in advance before reimbursement. This practice excludes jobseekers with limited financial means, even though such training is essential for reintegration into the labour market. -Certain professions, such as those in the Know Your Customer (customer due diligence) and Anti-Money Laundering (prevention of money laundering) sector, are not sufficiently well identified in the systems used to classify training courses and job referrals. This increases the risk of inconsistencies in job or training proposals. -Employers sometimes sign referral forms during interviews but subsequently provide no feedback to candidates, leaving them in prolonged uncertainty. -Some recruitment processes are excessively long and opaque, involving numerous stages and stakeholders, with delays of several months before a final decision is communicated. -Some companies primarily rely on the Employment Initiation Contract (Contrat d’Initiation à l’Emploi – CIE), a scheme that exists in Luxembourg and is implemented by ADEM in cooperation with employers, mainly targeting jobseekers under the age of 30. While this scheme aims to facilitate professional integration, its use may lack transparency when essential conditions such as actual remuneration, precise job content or employment prospects after the contract are not clearly communicated. In some cases, assigned tasks may go beyond the initially defined framework, raising questions about the appropriate use of this scheme. -During Job Days, several companies collect curricula vitae without providing any follow-up. Despite direct discussions with recruiters, many candidates receive no response, either positive or negative. -Some employers direct candidates to professional social networks or automated recruitment platforms, where pre-screening systems may reject applications based on minor criteria unrelated to actual skills, without sufficient human intervention. There is no public or transparent monitoring of the actual number of recruitments resulting from Job Days, nor of the reasons why certain applications do not lead to employment. These findings highlight systemic shortcomings affecting the labour market as a whole and call for structural improvements in the general interest. Social and professional consequences -Stress, discouragement and a sense of injustice among jobseekers. -Loss of confidence in public employment support mechanisms. -Missed training and employment opportunities, particularly in specialised sectors. -Increased risk of professional downgrading and marginalisation of qualified profiles. Call to action We call on the Luxembourg authorities and ADEM to: 1. Better integrate skills, experience and sectoral specialisations into job referrals and jobseeker monitoring. 2. Ensure thorough review of candidate files to avoid inappropriate or erroneous referrals. 3. Guarantee effective access to publicly funded training programmes without requiring upfront payment from beneficiaries. 4. Establish structured and measurable monitoring of Job Days and recruitment processes, including: reporting on the number of recruitments following events, transparency regarding reasons for non-selection, oversight of employer feedback practices and use of automated tools, particular vigilance regarding the use of employment integration schemes, including the Employment Initiation Contract, to ensure compliance with their original purpose. 5. Create a feedback mechanism to quickly correct shortcomings and continuously improve jobseeker support. Every jobseeker should benefit from fair, transparent and effective support, based on their actual skills, in order to promote sustainable professional integration aligned with the needs of the Luxembourg labour market.