A widely-held view of Luxembourg is that it is a country of banks and bankers, employing thousands of people - but the numbers tell a different story.
In the last edition of "Luxembourg en chiffres" (Luxembourg in numbers), government statistics service Statec published several pages dedicated to employment. Although these confirmed that around 49,000 people work in the "financial activity and insurance" industry, they also proved that the financial sector is not the number one sector in the Grand Duchy, despite the popular stereotype depicting Luxembourg as the land where banks rule all.
Effectively, the industry employing the most people is that of commerce, with some 53,600 employees in 2018. This includes wholesale trade, retail trade and everything related to the repair of cars and motorbikes.
The financial and insurance sectors (figures are combined) come in second place, followed by "health and social action" (47,000 employees), the construction sector (45,700) and "specialised, scientific and technical activities" (44,300).
The industries employing the fewest people are "arts, entertainment and recreation" (4,400 employees), "production and distribution of water" (2,800) and "production and distribution of electricity, gas, vapour and air conditioning" (1,500).
Safe to say, this presents a slightly different image of Luxembourg than that which is frequently misrepresented abroad.
