A study published by the University of Luxembourg recently confirmed that French remains the most required language on the Luxembourgish job market. Researchers looked at job offerings in newspaper Wort in five year intervals, starting in 1984, to determine the value of each of the country’s official languages.
At the same time, the study revealed that Luxembourgish has become more important in recent years. Our colleagues from RTL 5minutes talked to the researchers responsible for the publication about the reasons for this particular trend.
It is clear that government positions contribute to the remaining demand for Luxembourgish, given that most employees are required to speak all of the official languages. This has lead to some analysts declaring civil service a “refugee” or “protected” sector for the Luxembourgish, despite the fact that the hiring process is based on language proficiency rather than nationality.
However, staff shortages in recent times have forced the government to amend the language requirements for some positions. The afore-mentioned study shows that, for instance, in the two previous years, 11% of employees were exempted from one or more of the language requirements.
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The researchers behind the study are aware of how delicate the issue of Luxembourgish can be in the Grand Duchy. While some claim the language is being neglected, others lament that it is required too much. Sociologist Fernand Fehlen underlined in that regard that linguistic identity can be misused for xenophobic or populist intentions, which he strongly rejects.
For the most part of the study, English plays a relatively modest role. Nevertheless, Fehlen predicts that the language is set to become much more important in the future: “Sectors that require employees to speak English are on the rise, and I even see a tendency that English it will eventually replace French altogether in those sectors.”
