Luxembourg’s agriculture workforce is the tiniest in EU

The share of Luxembourg’s workforce involved in the agriculture industry is the joint lowest in the EU, according to a report published by the bloc’s official statistics agency Eurostat on Monday.

Only 0.7% of the country’s total workforce was involved in agriculture in 2022, the lowest share in any EU member state along with Malta, and well below the bloc’s average of just over 4%.

The number of people employed in the agriculture industry has dropped in every EU country over the past decade, noted the 2024 edition of an annual report examining the European food chain.

On average across the EU, the share of employment in agriculture has fallen by just over one percentage point since 2012, rising to more than nine percentage points in Romania.

Although Luxembourg had the EU’s highest food prices in 2023 – at 120% of the bloc’s average – the share of household expenditure on food and drink in the country was among the EU’s lowest.

Just 17.4% of household spending in Luxembourg in 2022 went on food and drink, Eurostat said, a share that was lower only in Germany, as the Grand Duchy’s residents enjoy greater purchasing power due to the highest average salary in the EU.