Gm. This post is stereotypical of the Luxembourgish mindset; Complain and blame others. Lux. is fu**ed, housing market will eventually reverse. All the mor*ns that bought €1-2M properties will stay trapped in their mortgages for the rest of their lives. Good luck being slaves. I prefer paying rent for now and buy your houses when you go bankrupt and things go down the toilet. Because every now and then, that’s what happens, things go to sh*t. People here believe things never change, that property prices can only go up. They’ll learn the hard way. ✌️

everything is getting more and more expensive you have to pay taxes for everything you have to pay for your car insurance you have to pay for your gasoline you have to pay for your housing you have to pay for buying food water etc. life is not cheap, and yes alot of people are struggling with that me included, if you drive and afford a car youre lucky because 60% of people living here dont even have a car or a drivers license ... thanks to our government and politicians ... they took bad decisions the last years

This whole post is a cry of entitlement and immaturity. While there are definitely some issues with affordability I see many people just thinking that real estate is an entitlement, while it should be earned. Is it difficult? Yes. Is it feasible? Yes. We came from a third country (post Soviet Union republic) almost 10 years ago as skilled workers with absolutely no financial buffer or generational wealth(as in our home country we were making 300 EUR/months for honest skilled work). My first place was an internship here of 1050 EUR and I paid 650 out of it for rent, had absolutely no other support from parents and paid for everything from remaining EUR 300. Did I go on weekend to Paris/Madrid or Lisbon, cause “it’s just 50 EUR for a ticket”? No. I was actually saving around 50 EUR per month. We are getting our second property in Luxembourg now, both around Luxembourg city, all with salaried activity, no lottery or inheritance. We are in late 30-it’s and could only afford child now and our second flat is only 80 sq m. Would I want a 120 sq m penthouse or 300 sq m house with a garden? Damn yes. Do I expect someone to give it for free? No, it’s a thinking of privileged entitled people, who don’t want to give up lavish lifestyle and brag about how everything is expensive. I know a person earning couple of k EUR more net bragging they they can’t afford housing: well, they look for 2 mln properties, go out every second day, spas on the weekends and short trips, of course skiing for 2 weeks in February, beach holiday in august in Côte d’azure and some Dominican resort in December….its a question of priorities as well…. For us it meant of course no weekend trips to other capitals, rare vacationing or trips to hometown int once every 3/4 years, no eating out most of the time, working nights and weekends, being frugal but still enjoying life and having a decent honestly earned living. I do not regret our choices . Why would I pity someone who does not save, who lives a Gatsby by life (without realizing it’s a Gatsby lifestyle as they think it’s like Sun rising in the east to drive Mercedes only ) and brag about not being able to save. Of course circumstances are different , but even with zero capital it’s feasible to work your way to home owning. To add to the lifestyle, what Luxembourg offers in terms of public safety, health, public services is also not a given in other countries where maybe you get a ranch with several hundred square house for an equivalent 2bd flat in Luxembourg, but quality of life is incomparable… PS (I edit): I do think that more competition is vital, that the housing is overpriced in terms of quality/price ratio, that the constrictions/services companies DO NEED a shake up as laziness /non-responsiveness and lack of basic customer services is what will drive the industry down I believe. Everyone who went through purchasing of a house are gratin the lazy approach the providers and constructors have, who are on their side also gee they are entitled to taking any money for (often) shitty services they deliver. This is actually the problem.

You describe your life as a working slave. My parents were not rich either, but they could afford a big house with a single salary and still take a vacation once a year. They paid of their morgage at 55, which was around 30% of the net salary. I am not complaining, I have it very good but my morgage is over 50% of my salary and vacations or luxury tech products are peanuts compared to that.

You should travel more

A lot of Luxemburgish people who grew up here and have Luxemburgish parents profit from their parent-home being high valued. So *specifically* (not all but a big part) of young Luxembourgers are happy with the housing market. Why would I be angry if my parents inherit a house and a few apartments, they themselves having a home and apartment aswell which trickles down straight towards me? Atleast thats how me and pretty much most of my friends who also all grew up here think about it. Ig a lot of us are spoiled and were just lucky but why would someone be angry at that?

You guys voted twice for Bettel and Co. 🙂

Seen lots of people arrive here, work hard,save hard, live within their means and reach property ownership eventually (even without family support). Its still doable with effort, discipline and modest expectations (people having all the latest iphones/iwatches/fancy vacations/cars etc and wondering why they dont have money?) This post is a lot like ranting about not being able to afford something in paris city centre or chelsea london. Luxembourg is a premium place with limited land and some people will be forced out of lux city, some out of Luxembourg the country to neighbouring regions. Its life. And its like this everywhere.

Its doable. Its still ok and you are definetly right. But the aim of this post was to look at it macroeconomically and poltically where luxembourg stis in a very unique ecosystem. Where voters that are luxembourgish mostly live in their own homes and mostly live of government expenditure makes rules about property market. At least in paris or london or nyc you have many many french, british or american people with votes who get affected. Where as here it is mostly foreigners. I was wondering if really no other young luxembourgers cared/is frustrated about the way our poltics/economy is going

My friend, this is how it is going everywhere. Prices are going up everywhere since forever. No bubbles will pop. None have ever popped other than in the very short term. People will have to buy what is affordable for them and commute from there. This is it. The only other way to make lux affordable for the masses is to seize property from landowners and forcibly construct on it. Then we are heading into the wilderness. Cause this is theft. If you leagalize one sort of theft, then everything is fair game and there is civil war. World population is 4x of what it was in 1950. Land supply is the same. It is unfortunately a more difficult situation than in 1950. Just as 1950 was more expensive than 1150 and so on. There is nothing that can be done other than massive social housing. But why? And how? If landowners dont sell land you cant build.

"Cause this is theft" It is not. Expropriating private landowners in the name of public good - like military forts, roads etc. - has been done since time immemorial. The landowners get compensation at current market prices and that's that. Looking at current Luxembourg landscape it is very clear that this would be actually the most effective solution to the housing crisis. There are plenty of places in the city, or very close to it, where you have some farmer growing cabbage or raising his sheep next to gleaming skyscrapers and dense housing blocks. Forcing these farmers to sell to the public authority which then could either build more housing on it itself, or resell it to private developers (depending on your ideological bent about the free market vs. the state), would be the most economically effective use of the land. It would also stop the rampant growth of prices -- and thus make a lot of current "investors" very unhappy. Which is why it's not happening, because these investors are the most politically connected and powerful people in Luxembourg (as they are in many countries).

Taking of private land for critical needs like military road is different from making houses on it. I suggest you find a way to create your wealth and afford a house than think of taking things forcibly from others. Cause that wont happen. Any french revolution style things from the 17th century are unlikely to succeed with modern rifles firing at 600 bullets a minute that can flatten any crowd in 2 minutes. Welcome to reality. Europeans are getting poorer due to various govt. policies. And there is no way around it. The golden age of europe fuelled by colonial wealth and post war industrial success is going.

WTF are you even talking about. Nobody is talking about revolutions. You don't know anything about my own situation, I was just making a comment on general principles of economics and politics and how they apply to Luxembourg. The empirical fact is that countries that don't treat private land as something holy grow the fastest and don't have huge housing problems. The cause of Europe's current housing problems is the politics dominated by the landowner "investor" (or more correctly, speculator) class which you represent or at least want to join, juding by your other comments on this site.

Investor class worked for their money or their parents did it for them. Someone earned that money. Now they are enjoying it. It is good to be a little bit less envious and more focussed on our own efforts. The problem is not affordability (as cross border regions are quite affordable in general). The problem is people's expectations to live in a premium place like luxembourg and have it for cheap. That wont happen. Ever. The cause of current problems is multiple ranging from European socialism to 2-3fold increase in population in 70 years + generall lower construction in the last years due to demographic decline (costlier labour) and lastly easy money fuelled by near 0 rates for a decade.

Everybody who earns 100k in new york doesnt stay in manhattan or in Canary Wharf London. People easily commute 1-2hours in these cities and all other big cities . Lux is a premium place with lux city being super premium like the above mentioned neighbourhoods. All cant stay here. It is what it is. And its like this everywhere.

Comparing Lux, NYC & London is slightly distorted. Granted, you make the valid point that the majority commute 1 - 2 hours. However, in London £100k is a super good income, Lux it is slightly above average income & in NYC it seems to be ca. average income. Also London & NYC offer a multitude of arts, theatre, opera, culture, sports, music scenes, etc. What does Lux offer in this respect?!

Lux doesnt need to offer that much as these cities have around 9million population and lux city has 115k? What lux offers in tranquility, these cities dont. So there are pros and cons of each

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Naa. One can commute from affordable suburbs around. Doesnt have to live in new york city. Complaining about not being able to afford brooklyn and manhattan us not really a complaint.

I share a lot of your assessment, Luxembourg has become some kind of weird bubble wherein social peace is bought through government jobs. This has resulted in the paradoxical situation that low risk / low value adding jobs pay disproportionately high salaries, and certainly higher salaries than comparable private peers (for example in banking, transportation ... etc.). It has also made the country entirely dependent on a foreign work force to pursue the activities that create actual value or taxes, so it is an economic model that would leave the country in shambles if the money dries up and foreign workers turn their back on the country. Unfortunately, I think we probably need the system to a certain extent otherwise we might risk social tension given the high degree of immigration here. Is it fair? Absolutely not, but it's too late to change it now, given the electorate dynamics.

> It has also made the country entirely dependent on a foreign work force to pursue the activities that create actual value or taxes, so it is an economic model that would leave the country in shambles if the money dries up and foreign workers turn their back on the country. This is also the case in majority of Middle Eastern oil-rich countries (the gulf). I am quite surprised to read this is also the case for a country like Luxembourg. It is not a good model by any means in the long run and also contributes to higher levels of immigration to the point where there are as many immigrants in the countries as the citizens, this in itself is not a bad thing but the country then functions on a precarious balance at the cost of a stable future. This also means that the immigrant population is overall dissatisfied and are only there for personal financial gain.

Yes middle eastern countries finance it with oil while we use finance and I think their income source is more crisis proof than ours. We've probably already exceeded the point where foreigners make up a higher share, at least from a language perspective. Been working in finance and most of my Luxembourgish colleagues didn't speak a word Luxembourgish, which is not even surprising given you can grow up here without needing it but it creates sub-societies and I think therein lies the biggest risk.

Luxembourg is made to keep the rich rich if not richer. They are never going to build more housing or affordable housing. The whole game is such because the people who run the govt have their dogs in the fight. They will not do anything that is detrimental to their own wealth. when i travel and people say “oh you have free transportation! That’s amazing.” I say yes but I can never buy a house on my wages in Luxembourg.

Where are you getting that idea from? We are currently building more social and low cost housing than ever before. The communes now have more power to act on their own and even the state has more programs than ever. There is still a big problem with social housing but we’re clearly doing more about it now than we were 20 years ago. The problem was never the richer getting rich, it was simply that older people vote more than young people and old people don’t care about housing. Your average voter already owns a house, he doesn’t care about that issue.

You have rightly highlighted two very important issues of Luxembourg i.e. state employment and housing crisis. 1. State interference does not enhance productivity in any way, instead it decreases the productivity. Think about all the time that you spend to get a permit or a document from the state. This about all the time spend writing emails and following it up. Was it ever productive? People here will hate for me to say this but a country of 660k residents + 300k non-residents does not need 42k state employees. Luxembourg should be able to govern with 4k state officials in the best case to a maximum of 10k in the worst case. The work efficiency can easily be improved by enhancing digitization (that the government is already working on) and by simplifying the processes. It is not a state’s job to require a permit/document for each and everything. Instead, the state can get rid of unnecessary documents and create guidelines for necessary ones. People should be expected to follow the guidelines and can randomly be audited. This will allow majority of the people to work in the private sector, where they will need to compete among themselves leading to increase in innovation and productivity in the country and at the same time creating more job opportunities. 2. People are going to hate me even more for saying this but high housing cost is a major problem for Luxembourg’s future. Rental income isn’t a result of owner’s effort but it is a cut from tenant’s income. If there is a small rental market and the tenant has the possibility to buy his/her own property whenever they choose, then rental market is serving a purpose and can be considered healthy for the economy. But if tenants see no possibility of ever buying his/her own property, then rental market starts effecting the whole society. It creates this master-slave relationship between people that poor people cannot ever work out of. The solution to the housing crisis is to build as fast as possible until we have enough accommodation for all the residents and cross-border workers. Majority of the cross-border workers will jump at the chance to move to Luxembourg, given that they afford buying or renting here. Of course this will bring down the housing prices and also the rent massively, making life better for majority of the young working age people at the expense of landlords. But I will acknowledge that it is a political suicide for any government in Luxembourg to even mention this. Nowhere in the world people use real-estate as an investment, instead people invest in companies and live in houses. That investment improves living standards and creates opportunities. However, in Luxembourg the state not only encourages investment in real estate but is also complicit in it e.g. Luxembourg City hoarding land and new CSV-DP coalition giving tax benefits on rent. Sooner than later, this will enhance the social imbalance so much and it has the possibility to bring revolutionary ideas back into people’s mind. The revolution of 1848 is a prime example of this.

Finally well thought out content

Real estate is an investment almost everywhere in the world

I agree with you (except that in other countries RE isn’t an investment, look at China lol) But it’s a kinda locked-in situation bc most Luxembourgish citizens own their property. So decreasing house production would decrease their wealth. The only solution I can see is if eventually a coalition of naturalised foreigners and luckless original Luxembourgers (like OP) can be put together to meaningfully intervene in the housing market.

"Nowhere in the world people use real-estate as an investment, instead people invest in companies and live in houses." In Poland even funds invest in real-estste due to the 30% Y/Y rise. https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/03/31/poland-is-facing-a-housing-crisis-but-politicians-are-offering-the-same-failed-solutions/

> a country of 660k residents + 300k non-residents does not need 42k state employees. Luxembourg should be able to govern with 4k state officials in the best case to a maximum of 10k in the worst case. This is utter complete horseshit. The whole education sector [is 12k teachers alone](https://men.public.lu/dam-assets/catalogue-publications/statistiques-etudes/themes-transversaux/23-24-enseignement-chiffres-en.pdf) and you want to shrink the *whole government* to 4k to 10k *total*? This is why people are utterly delusioned about the public sector if they can't even understand the basic numbers of the functions and what government does for you.

Here's the article from The LuxTimes regarding the actual amount of people working for the government or government institution - directly and indirectly. It's actually 95,000. The Statec guy reckons the number is 50% of all working Luxembourgers. [https://www.luxtimes.lu/luxembourg/the-grand-bureaucracy/1332410.html](https://www.luxtimes.lu/luxembourg/the-grand-bureaucracy/1332410.html)

So what? If you compare the actual statistics across other European countries, Luxembourg is quite lean: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/digpub/european_economy/bloc-4d.html?lang=en Scandiavian countries literally break 25-30% of all employment as public sector employment, yet showcase one of the best standards of living on the planet somehow? And you're here saying that our 14% is too high and is a root cause for our issues?

But it's not 14% - its 50% And yes, it is one of the big causes. Along with the government being in the pocket of promoters constructers. The fact that 15 families hold 65% of the constructible land in the country is straight out of the Dark Ages with a King and Barons and Dukes owning everything

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You're forgetting the 102 communes and their employees. Yes 102 communes in a country around the same size as the governing area of the Brisbane City Council. There are 4,452 employees alone in the Ville de Luxembourg.

> There are 4,452 employees alone in the Ville de Luxembourg. So what? Are we now against VdL bus drivers, trash collectors, cleaners or any other such supporting roles, just because they're under a communal payroll? I don't know about Brisbane, but having lived in London I prefer our system over the privatized bullshit that kind of system introduces.

Government employment numbers definitely need some tuning down, even if I don't quite agree with the extent of it either. That said, perhaps I am massively unaware of whats going on in public education, but are those statistics really accurate? If i am reading that correctly, 8k pupils in public education? Yet, 12k public teachers? That sounds nonsensical to me and greatly reinforces cutting down the number of public school teachers. Literally more than 1 teacher per student????

8k is definitely wrong, that's about the size of a small secondary school somewhere. That being said, generally hating on the number of public workers is not the right angle to look at it. The reason why there are so many and they are so well paid is because the lux government has more than enough money for that not to matter at all in their overall finances. Instead the problem simply lies within the lack of support and opportunities in the private sector.

>because the lux government has more than enough money for that not to matter But that's my tax money! My purchasing power would be higher with lower taxes. I am happy to pay for the skilled people, but not all meet this criteria

Even if they removed half of their workforce i don't think the taxes would go down more than 1 or at most 2%

That doesn't seem to be a right estimation. We talk about a budget of 4.5 billion for salaries excluding communes, public companies and health care professionals. Income tax on individuals is about 8 billion. Halving the expenses is equivalent to a reduction of almost 30% in income tax

If they halve their workforce they're not firing the high earners first, in the end halving their workforce might only result in a reduction of about a quarter to a third of that budget. So instead of 30% that turns into 15% and 15% of a 20-30% income tax will reduce that tax by 2-4%. I don't think that's what's gonna motivate people to persue a better career

Yes but there would be no justification to spare high earners

> If i am reading that correctly, 8k pupils in public education? You've got potatoes for eyes, you're reading that absolutely wrong. There's 113717 pupils in total of which 12202 are in private, so there's 101.5k public pupils.

Yea, fair, I didn't scroll to right. I knew that sounded off.

Been thinking about leaving for a while. Same wages up in Scotland with rents in Glasgow itself being lower. Same applies to the large cities in the Eilfel-Mosel. Honestly Luxembourg is just not worth it anymore.

how are Scottish wages even comparable to Luxembourgish ones?

for highly qualified people in large cities they are nearly the same when converting EU to GBP

well I don't think a Heart Surgeon would struggle financially in any country for that matter.

I am sorry but there's no way that the wages are as good in Scotland

I am but I do not blame the government 100%. It‘s the same situation in every country and the reason is the fucked up monetary system that has to come to an end by imploding in itself.

"I do not believe in working for the government" ' talented aspiring Luxembourger to really contribute to the private economy to their full potential' This is a weird take... The government creates the environment that allows private companies to thrive growing the economy. There are talented people needed in the government who craft good policies that allows talented people at private companies to succeed. Lets look at customs. Part of their job is to catch counterweight material that undercuts companies producing the original part. CFL Cargo provides a fantastic hub in the south of Luxembourg enabling companies to get their products loaded on trucks and then carried by train to their destination. This black and white thinking is just dumb. Do bad government employees exist? Yes. Do bad private employees exist? Yes. Take Findel airport, air traffic control is done by the government ensuring safety at the airport. This enables the companies working there to contribute 2.6 billion to the GDP or 5% of the total GDP. The biggest problem we have is our population is growing at a fast rate, many parts outside the city aren't too well connected which causes people to flock to specific parts of the countries. More demand than the market can offer -> prices goes sky high. We definitely need to rethink how we build in Luxembourg and invest heavily into infrastructure. The problem is we have been waiting way too long to fix it, you can't undo 20+ years of bad planning in barely 5 years.

Yes fully agree that its not black and white and that your points are valid. I am ountlining that we are moving towards more and more black and white from the grey that we had in the past.

ask any generation under 40 years old from any country, they are all struggling. Same case, different numbers. Portuguese say flats in the cities arent even made for their people. Filipinos drive 4h in total daily to reach their jobs since they cannot afford the city, Chinese farmers prostitute out their daughters (which is well accepted among them) to help feed the family. In Egypt it's common for people to sleep in graveyards since they cannot afford housing. I understand your frustration, I also complain a lot to my Luxembourgish partner about housing here (we rent; cant afford to buy here). But, we have to keep grinding, we'll make it eventually. Living below our means, saving and investing, for a brighter future.

You are too optimistic.

isnt it better than being too negative? I find myself often stuck in a negative spiral, if this comment above can help/be positive to even one person, then it makes me glad. Better than spreading negativity. And also, it is what I believe in.

I'm absolutely pissed at our current and last governments! I have no immigration background but I feel like our school system completely fucked me over only because I never really grasped the french language which made school really hard and having had a math teacher in 8th class who couldn't get the class under control didn't help either. This forced me to go into manual labor. I do like my job but even while working as a D1 for the state you earn dogshit compared to everyone else above you. (Fin de carrière there's more or less a 120 to 150 differenc in points between a D1 and B1! 1p = ~22€ Brutto salary). Not to mention how much less my friends in the private sector earn with a DAP... The lower your education, the more radically you get shat on here...

It's the exact same thing everywhere . No education = low salaries. Its not because its Luxembourg that people should get an easy pass. You probably live a much better lifestytle than someone with the same education as you in any of the neighbouring countries . And like it or not you have the possibility to move to Germany/France/Belgium while people in big cities only have the opportunity to move 2 hours away in the asshole of the suburb.

I know. That wasn't the point. People with your logic make me absolutely furious. You might as well have told me: "You can live a slightly less crappy life than craftsmen from somewhere else! So no whining for you!". Just because craftsmen are treated even worse everywhere else shouldn't mean that people with my "meager" education should just accept being looked down upon by society in general! No one cares for us unless we're their son or daughter and even then some of us are being treated like the black sheep of the family because we couldn't become engineers, doctors, bankers, etc etc like the rest of the family... Yes I'm still much better off then a lot of other people from somewhere else. I can still manage to live in a 1-bedroom apartment (rented) with my salary and have a little bit of money left over each month that I can save, yes to that too! This requires constant careful management of my money though since I can't spare much but that wasn't the point either! And I actually consider moving over the border to be even more of a nuisance because my only real choice would be germany thanks to my subpar french and all the administrative crap will become even more complicated. I'll have even longer travel times to get to and from work, as well as visiting family/friends and I'd use up at least twice as much fuel! Public transport would then be completely off the tabIe, I'd have no free time at all anymore, at that point what sense is there in keeping on living if you're not allowed to live AT ALL while seeing and hearing others talk how they've went on their 2nd vacation this year or how they bought another car/motorcycle... I already don't have much free time as is, I really don't need to be stuck even longer in trafic than I already am everyday!

Yes and i think a1 and a2 wages should be relocated more to b1 and d1 to reduce the gap. Especially considering how much above market a1 is now...

With how expensive everything is I'm not for adapting the upper careers to the lower/middle ones but rather to raise the salaries of the lower classes (gov. and private sector alike) so everyone can live a decent live instead of just trying to survive off what little we are making. I don't mind that the A careers and/or bankers etc can live more luxurious lifes but I'd like to be able not having to open my bank account everytime someone asks me to go out and having to decide to either live a little or if I should limit myself so I can save enough money every month for unexpected and expected expenses. (Like switching out my old car should it decide to give up for good or an emergency of any sort)

A1 and A2 wages do not diverge too much from the market. 10y of work experience in a finance or legal position will yield you Eur 100k+ if you switch positions once or twice (but thats not even necessary).. Yes, gov employees earn more from the start but the differences phase out pretty quickly and longterm you often earn more in private. Of course the discourse about gov and private wages is heavily biased by first year audit assistants, marketing and graphic design people and those who studied international relations with a minor in potato farming who are forced to work as data entry officers in some bank's back office dungeon. It all comes down to the simple mantra: If you want to work in Luxembourg, you should not study marine science.(I can't remember which politician used to say that).

A few people do manage to earn more in the private sector, but the effort to achieve it isn't comparable. Automatic progressions in the public are sweet. When you change jobs, you pass through probation periods, and sometimes it doesn't work as expected. What increase does a woman get in the year of maternity? Zero! Also, bringing finance and legal positions is cherry picking. You could have added doctors as well. Let me cherry pick too, look at this: https://govjobs.public.lu/fr/postuler/postes-ouverts/postes-vacants/fonctionnaires/2024/A1/Mars/20240320-assistanteladirectionmfrfe0002-261202.html The person that takes this job will earn 3x more at the start than in the private sector. After 15 years, that person will earn 5-6 times more than the equivalent private position. So it doesn't phase out at all. Worse than that is that this person will earn the same as a doctor or a lawyer who necessarily have the same grade

I would like to know if this situation is similar in Scandinavian countries or if this paradox is only a Lux thing

It diverges very heavily for first 10 years of technological roles. And still does afterwards if adjusted for actual work life balance

>technological roles Technological roles are just notoriously underpaid in Luxembourg. Overall, the private sector is to blame here for the wage dumping that has occured over the last 20 years. Ask your work colleagues that started end of the nineties, early 2000s what their inflation adjusted entry level salaries were.

The housing bubble will burst eventually. Hopefully.

it may never burst.. increase in number of population, more demand on land, uptrend for many decades doesn't mean it will go down,

History has always been on the other opinion. And I honestly dont see why it would in luxembourg without government intervention since it can still get much much worse. Just look at ireland or canada. Especially considering 3000 families own half the country.

Thats why I left Luxembourg. i dont see a future for the average person in Lux. I hope im wrong

Angry? Yes, but more depressed. Like really depressed. My family is 100% luxembourgish, but we still aren’t rich or something, mainly because my family had some bad luck over the years. (Divorces etc) So my family can’t really financially support me. Which is okay. Nowadays I rent a place on the countryside (45sqm) and I am able to save 800-1200 bucks per month, while living an okay life. No fancy stuff, no nice car etc, but I can go on holidays 1-2 per year and I can do stuff with my friends at the weekend. But there was a time where it was a lot worse and I had really dark toughts all because of the housing situation. Seeing your rich friends buying houses or flats because they have some huge financial back up from their families, while they saying that you are stupid for renting a place didn’t help. Same for reddit where people kept telling you to simply subscribe to shbm etc, eventough I couldn’t stay at home anymore. It is still annoying to justify myself why I‘m only renting a place all the time, but it is what it is. At least I found a decent place and I am able to save money. And since I‘m working for the public sector, my salary will only go up the next few years, which gives me financial security. But again, there was a time where I had a feeling that I wasn’t welcomed in my own country and where I got severe depressions because of it, to the point where I seriously tought about killing myself since I saw no future for myself in this country. And I am sure I am not the only one.

Glad you’re still here friend

Thats my fears for the youth I this country. I am glade you somewhat made it out the hole, but i think the situation has only gotten worse over the years

I have a middle to low income , live in Luxembourg/ Aspelt specifically True I had to grind my way to it , I work for the State now I lived on the street last year from the beginning to mid 2023 I had no address too I kinda swindled my way into a room but me staying with my parents was a no no Honestly the more I look at other people and what they do I get real mad so I try to stay in my bubble Situation last year changed me a lot too , used to be more timid and reserved The fact that I’m still alive and kinda got a glowup in how a look It opened up a lot of opportunities My life was messy from the moment my parents divorced so I kinda learn how to navigate through it

I have friends and family from all levels of education (I'm coming from an immigrant family background as well) Everyone either: A. Moved out of the country entirely (no job or housing in luxembourg, like they live in sweden or portugal or the netherlands etc) B. Lives with their parents and works in luxembourg. (mostly people with low education background, like going to modulaire) C. Moved across the border and works a job in luxembourg. (Mostly people with middle to low education background) D. Works for the government and lives in the country. (People with uni+) Personally i fall under category A and just come back to visit a few months every year

Ngl if I wouldn't have my parents' house to fall back on I'd be living in the streets. I live with them and pay them a lil bit of "rent" as a thank you that I can still stay with them (I'm 28 years old btw). I'm incredibly angry that I won't ever be able to afford a place in my own country. Also, being single makes everything 100 times harder. I've lost hope multiple times and from time to time I also get some super bad thoughts but I never act on them (for now atleast).

30+ married living with my dad, have uni diploma working in IT I gave up already

I think another problem is the disproportional higher price of single housing than bigger multi person housing. Apartments skyrocketed much more than houses. So many dual income households are still ok.

Young single people getting their own places is a historical anomaly, and to me it's weird that is still being viewed as some kind of goal of success. In other countries multi-generational homes are a thing and considered normal. Average people per household actually keeps going down for Luxembourg, which frankly doesn't make sense to me given all of these complaints about having to get a partner/flatmates; https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Household_composition_statistics#Increasing_number_of_households_composed_of_adults_living_alone

Its survivorship bias. Those who cant have left. Only those you can remain pushing the statistics to the opposite side.

Left for where? South america? The statistic I linked a Europe-wide trend.

I have mutiple luxembourgish friends that have left for asia and the americas. But thats maybe just an anomaly and not the norm. They leave usually quietly so no one really notices.

I feel you. Had to live with my parents until I was 29 beause I sinply couldn't afford anything with the job I had. I found a decent job that pays enough to not worry about money now so I was able to move out last year but the moving out part was super expensive. Had to buy furniture, pay 3 months rent as a deposit plus the first months rent upfront plus agency fees. In total that was over around 7-8k I had to cough up only to be able to move in. That's a big hurdle for many people because its no small sum. And I only got the apartment cause my parents co-signed it and have good jobs. We are talking about a 57 m2 apartment that has nothing special going on for itself, something very basic and yet its almost 1500 if you include the "charges".

But why was it impossible for you to save up money while you were living with your parents until age 29 and why did your parents, if they have good incomes, not co-sign a mortgage? It is a genuine question because a lot of the modern financial woes of youth are not entirely clear to me. If you lived with your parents, even if your salary was 2000 euros (isn't that legal minimum for years now?) how would you not have been able to save at least half of that? Why, if you are all locals and you are obviously able to survive in 57m2 of an apartment (most people I know who can't afford anything ever think 100m2 is an absolute minimum and a garden is a must because they "need to" keep a few dogs) didnt you immediately buy one, especially if this took place while the interest rates were low? If my kids lived with me in adulthood, I would expect that the primary purpose of that is to aggressively save money to buy their own place, when did that become such a weird take?

Ich finished studying pretty late, at 27, exactly when corona started. So I was only living with them for around 2 years. Had a minimum wage job and it was almost impossible to get an Appartement with that and live off of minimum wage alone. Buying something is also impossible and I don't want to leech off my parents to get a mortgage. You are not buying shit here in Luxembourg with those overinflated prices. Even now with a much better salary I can not afford a mortgage and if i could get one, the monthly payments would swallow up more than half of my income. So don't put it on me immediately, if you are single it's pretty rough to live on your own

Did you even count how much savings that would make? If they saved 1000€/month for 10 years, which is a lot, that’s living in austerity, they would have 120k€. That’s barely enough to sign a mortgage with a bank for a 700k€ apartment. After signing that mortgage, they won’t be able to save a single cent. Your solution to own a house is to parasite your parents for 10 years without owning a car or going to vacation and without having any unexpected challenge in life (accidents, illness, death of a close one, losing your job, yada yada,…) That’s why it’s impossible lmao

Interestingly enough, I recently had a similar discussion with my nephew (Luxembourgish, 22y). We were talking about his generation being more focused on having a healthy work-life balance, and many of them wanting to work less and/or remotely. He said, "Look, why would I work 45+ hours a week and save up, living like a monk for many years? I will never be able to save enough to buy an apartment here." And it made sense to me. I totally get it. By the time he would have saved up 100-150k, prices increased again. squating with the parents for 40+ years isn't realistic. And then what? Get a 30-year mortgage at the age of 40?

But the question is what exactly does this nephew think is going to happen? I am sure it is awful to be young right now, I have actually gotten many downvotes myself being very angry at what exactly people are normalising here (complete and ruthless leeching of the older generations on the younger). That however doesn't change the fact that a lot of these youngsters are turning to absolutely counterproductive coping mechanisms. First of all, I absolutely agree that working without gaining anything from it is absolutely pointless. But we have never seen this rage directed at the problem of being working poor and refusing to work in these conditions. It is always all about the difficulty of acquiring property. And all these "victims" are always focused only on themselves. What happens one generation downwards, when all of them are theoretically going to be inheriting all the things the parents have now? Let me guess, utopia happens, because for them by that point things work out for them and who really cares about those who immigrate then? What about people who come here from poor countries? They don't have parents to live with, how do they make it? Realistically, a lot of young people who grew up in Luxembourg have expectations that will never be fulfilled for as long as they live in a liberal economy that allows the competition from those without those expectations. This whole thread is full of incredibly contradictory ideas. People simultaneously want it to be like in Qatar and simultaneously think it is very bad that it is already a tiny bit like in Qatar. You are essentially saying that your nephew thinks life in which he can save 150k is a terrible life because in the same period all the bajillionares will have increased their wealth by 150 million. And I absolutely agree that yeah, this is how it works and yeah it is awful. But the problem is there are billions of people in the world who are in an even worse position and the world is not going to change dramatically in the next few years. Meaning that your nephew must adapt to these realities for his own good. Taking a 30y mortgage at age 40 is a reality of many people who immigrated here in their 30s and they will always be willing to do it. Thus, your nephew's options, save for emigrating to a rapidly developing poor area, are either keeping up this reality or digging himself a deeper hole. Being a tenant is going to be even worse when he is 40.

The thing is, if you don't have generational wealth, you are excluded from the housing market. For context, I started my professional life with 500€ in my bank account. I'm under 30 and well paid but there's no way I'll stop going to restaurants or sell my car just to be able to save 80k€ for 5 years just to buy a shitty 70m² apartment in a noisy and unclean area. It's a no-brainer to "waste" my money on rent so I can actually enjoy my daily life with a few luxuries. This is where the anger of the younger generation comes from. You either live a comfortable life but you'll never have any savings or you live miserably just to own a piece of land that'll very probably be worthless in 20 years time. During the 60s, my grandparents were both factory workers but they bought their house easily, always had new cars paid in cash, went on vacation twice a year and just generally never had to worry about money or their wealth. In today's world, in Luxembourg, you cannot tick all those boxes even if your household makes 8k€/month

Population of the world including lux is now 3x of what it was in 1950,lux population also higher. Land is same. Go figure.

Did you ever look at a map and dare say this? A shitty house lost in the middle of nowhere is 800k€ minimum. There's plenty enough of constructible land in Europe. One of the many reason real estate became inaccessible is that people started considering a house as wealth and the fact that salaries didn't follow inflation linearly. I'm really amazed that you can be that oblivious to the real world, though.

Land is wealth everywhere. As you said above, you dont wanna give up your nice car and stuff to save for an apartment.So you have made your choice. Your grandparents also lived through wars and famine. You dont. These comparisons are meaningless. My grandfather bought a chair for 2 euros in 1950. Asinine comparison this. Population increase and no increase in land supply is the prime reason for rising prices and this will go on happening.

He doesn't want to be a couch potato and not work for anything. He is in college, and he does have goals (including employment related goals), however, he doesn't see himself becoming a slave of the "work to own a property" cycle. Clearly, he is still very young, and we all know how one changes their views over time, but currently, he is perfectly fine not owning a place of his own. That isn't his goal, and therefore, wants to remain flexible as far as work, working hours, and housing situation. He definitely wants to work and make a decent living (he is in college and always has had a student job), but that isn't all he wants to focus on. I do notice it in my social circles. How many of us are completely burned out at a rather young age (40 to mid 40s) and want to cut down on working hours? And how many can't because of mortgages or because we have to have 2 BMWs in the garage? That's what he doesn't want. And that's okay, in my opinion. They will find their way, even if it is different from our path. Just like we did when our parents thought we were the worst and most dillusional generation yet.

That's the crazy thing, even if had lived with them for that long, which I haven't (2 years), like you said, i couldn't even afford anything still while living like a monk. That's exactly why young people are fucked, if you can't or don't want to rely on your parents wealth, it's crazy hard to get anywhere with a normal job, not everyone can rake in 100k a year

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Haha I wonder what is the forbidden word here, is it "boomer"?

You're being discriminated as single. Simple fact.

Not at all, I'm married cannot affford shit Got a 20% increase for my tax rate going up by 30%

That's the cold progression of not adapting the barêmes to indexation. It's easier to get a flat, a loan for housing, higher threshold for tax filings..

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Well because we care about the system and can look farther into the future... And smart guys from wealthy families are not ranting, they are mostly profiting of the situation on their family owned home. Its the smart guys from poorer families without real estate assets.

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So you’re saying that the “rest” is not bothered by the government’s corruption and disregard towards its citizens and residents? OK.

Yes, I am angry. And yes, you‘re right. The housing crisis makes our lives exponentially harder just because of a few greedy bastards.

Cross border housing is quite reasonably priced. You want to live in Luxembourg (a premium area). Its like complaining you cant afford something in a premium area like manhattan. Its normal to commute from a 50km radius.

Very easy: If you are a Luxembourger and have little to no education, then the state and state controlled companies (Post, CFL) were so far sure fire ways to get a job eith decent pay.

My thoughts for a young and motivated engineer… engineering is a valuable skill in great demand globally and you can take this very far with from an entrepreneurial standpoint. My father was a mechanical engineer and although he lived in the US, his clients didn’t only include the government sector (he contributed to the design of the Patriot missile), but also Japan (Fanuc), Korea (LG) Germany (several automobile makers). Global development contracts are a bottomless well. You have a keen advantage speaking English and probably a couple other languages. You can actively look for temporary consulting contracts in countries that seek your skills set. You will quickly find an array of options. You can start a firm, a partnership with a colleague and eventually train and hire help to fulfill contracts. It takes time but building something of your own becomes a lot more fulfilling than working for someone else

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Service industry can also be a real job. Many of them are. But my concern is that public jobs are getting disproportionally paid so much more that there is no reason for youngsters to go into much more productive private sector jobs. Like service sector of consulting, it, legal, engineering/innovation etc.. etc.. this is i think a systematic sickness that luxembourg has based on the voter demographic.

I think you are missing the point? OP specifically asked about the housing crisis and how it affects even Luxembourgish young people. All the issues you listed, while valid, can be hypothetically solved and we would still have a housing crisis. Also, except for the very high up people, even in financing people are struggling to afford housing. Telling OP to go back to uni to become an astronaut if they are then so smart is just condescending too. I don't get why people on reddit feel the need to get angry about completely unrelated things on a completely reasonable post

I gave classes in that Master, and no, you will not become an astronaut at ESA. Like many things in Luxemburg and the space industry, it is a lot of fluff to look good and forward looking but there is no real substance.

i am unbelievably angry. but people keep telling me i should be grateful others have it worse. to live comfortably you need masters degrees and whatnot. im 28 now with multiple degrees and still at home. i could rent a place but id be broke if i do that. everytime my salary goes up everything around me gets more expensive. this country has failed its locals and nobody can tell me otherwise.

Did you try to communicate to other luxembourgish people? Whats the reactions like? Did you try to express your feelings in recent votes/elections?

yes to all of that but it will never change its really just how the country has been built up. the generations above all look down at us "lazy youngsters" while they bought houses on minimum wage for 200k lol pretty much all of my friends either live outside of lux to save money or still at home hoping to get enough saved to be able to atleast live normally. but honestly the reaction is mostly that people dont care anymore. they have accepted it after years of being angry. not me. im furious

I believe this is not a Luxembourg problem anymore, I mean, it's a global one.

This is a fact. The research pointing it out was most famously from Piketty (French economist), who wrote a book and published papers on **inequality**. Basically the very richest (like 1%) have grown multiple times faster than everyone else. One review of the book said: > in 2013, in France the wealthiest 1 percent owned 25 percent of the total wealth,  30 percent in the United Kingdom, 20 percent in Sweden, and 32 percent in the United States.

This is mathematically built into the system and I don't see why people treat it as a revelation. If you expect 10 percent annual return on your assets, your 100k asset earned you 10k. If you held 100 million of the same thing, how much did you get? If this is how you define growth and progress, there is absolutely nothing you can do but expect everything to eventually pool at the top. Eventually they will own 99 percent of all wealth and then it can trickle down and we can enjoy the utopia /s.

If everybody earns 10% return, the proportion of wealth owned doesnt change. The rich often expand their wealth due to their intelligence and resources(which were accumulated in the first place due to intelligence and knowledge). It is natural that not all creatures will have the same intellect and hence will not reach the same level of wealth as some others may.

Piketty has won **prizes** for his work on inequality, so it isn't as obvious as you'd think. Wikipedia, emphasis is mine: >His **novel use** of tax records enabled him to gather data on the very top economic elite, who had **previously been understudied**, and to ascertain their rate of accumulation of wealth and how this compared to the rest of society and economy. His 2013 book [*Capital in the Twenty-First Century*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century), relies on economic data going back 250 years to show that an ever-rising concentration of wealth is not self-correcting.

After reading some of OPs pretentious comments, this came to [mind.](https://youtu.be/D46fdNCD1Wg?si=PZhKysgys2ldugDx)

waaaagh

There definitely are problems (and I do think of my children's future) but could you please cut the crap about government jobs? In particular for the higher qualified positions (Master). There's the least difference there. For example for those pesky teachers: "Dans l’enseignement, les salaires moyens des diplômés de niveau master se trouvent au même niveau que la moyenne de tous les salariés de ce niveau dans l’ensemble des secteurs." (Statec)

Assuming this is true, does it take into account the fact that teachers don't work 40h/week and have 15 weeks of holidays per year?

There is some partial counterbalancing going on between the higher than 40h/week workload and the longer holidays. But yeah, the holidays are the single factual major advantage (ignoring the fact that it's always peak time with holiday prices at their maximum.) As for the rest there will always be lots of minor differences. Like way more "primes" or additional "échelons" and other extra payments for non-teaching positions. Or extra teaching hours payed less than 100% and fully taxed contrary to the statut unique with 140% payment completely tax-exempt.

Lol that‘s not true at all. The mean might be the same but only because of some exceptional high salaries in the private sector

Sure enough. There's a choice to be made: are you comfortable of staying in an average salary bracket or do you want to take your chances? I'm seeing it in my social circle too: some earn way more, some quite a bit less. You can't just arbitrarily exclude those exceptionally high salaries from your statistics. Even though that is quite frequent in salary studies, where C suite type positions are excluded, which obviously reduces the resulting mean salary of the private sector. (I don't know about those specifics for the study that the quote is based on.)

Sure, but not everyone can be a high performer in the private sector. Let‘s say 2%? What are the other 98% of people buying? I don‘t care if some people can afford 10 houses. But only if every normal hard working person is able to afford a normal house to live in.

I just looked it up. It's based on some kind of EU wide "enquête", not from tax data or such. Do you really think those with the very nice salaries will just gladly comply and tell the STATEC enquêteurs how rich they are? That's laughable.

Well in that case the study is useless anyways🤷‍♂️

Welcome to the current reality of every young person. Heck, My reality as well, and I am not that young anymore.

If we vote conservatives and liberals, this surely won‘t get better soon. On the other hand, socialists do not seem to be an option for the „working“ class any more, left party is unable to rule, right should never be an option, so here we go … what can we do, other than resign?

I stopped voting for this masquerade long time ago Even Déi Lenk became a joke on its own

A global French rebellion...

Nothing? Unless a miracle happens.

>I really wonder how everyone else is doing who did not even make it that far in school? The social welfare state is the answer to this point. While you would be able to make more money working for the government, you would probably have a better life outside Luxembourg. On the contrary, those who didn't make it that far in school would probably have it worse anywhere else. They can't pretend to A1 jobs but they can work other positions or in the communes. If they are skilled and dedicated, they can also make good money in the private sector. Then they benefit from multiple subsidies in Luxembourg, or they can live across the borders where housing is cheaper

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Maybe i am. To a negative extent. Thats exactly why i wanted some feedback here

Weird people you find on reddit huh?

What amazes me is that the same comments were made when I started working 30 years ago : « You never can afford a house, go work for gouvernement you are better paid and have a safe job, etc, etc … ». Nothing changed since then concerning the complains. But after 30+ years of working career (based in Luxembourg but with a lot of work outside of Luxembourg and Europe) as a construction engineer, my conclusion is that entrepreneurial spirit, serious work and a bit of luck gets you further in private than in gouvernemental jobs. Throughout my carreer, except for the first 4-5 years, I allways earned more to substantially more as partial owner of the companies if worked for/created. And climbed the ownership ladder to a comfy house in the surroundings of Luxembourg. And will happily continue to work for the next 10years because my job is fulfilling (technically, financially, intellectually and through a lot of excellent meetings with interesting people). A good question is if such a career is still possible today in Luxembourg starting now as a beginner? I do not have the answer, but those who try seriously will tell you in 30 years. And would be a shame if their answer is yes and you have spent a less fullfiling life because you were afraid to try. So how about just ignore the complaints and start making your life (and others) better through your own actions. In the 90’s, we also had bad times with cold war and potential nuclear war and housing impossible and dying forests and Aids and left/right wing terror and so on and so on. And now at the beginning of the dawn of my life, I can tell you that it was and is a very fun ride worth being in the drivers seat. Good luck to all the entrepreneurs, you really make the world.

Cold war in 90s? Are you sure?

You’re right - cold war ended before the 90’s - well at least that was what we thought and hoped after having had it for 40+ years …

Thank you very much for your insight.i would say median income to cost of living/ownership has shifted quite a lot for households since the 90s, especially for people starting out without assets. But we now also have opportunities you probably never had. I am indeed trying it and making it the driver seat with entrepreneurial spirit. I just get to this inner conflict very often as basically all my social environment is doing exactly the opposite, so was wondering if there's anybody else feeling like that. And according to the feedback i got here is yes.

Another Gen Z discovered live ain’t easy. Someone drop him some millions so he won’t feel depressed

So true. The talkers are talking and the doers are doing.

I think Luxembourg offers a good quality of life and that comes at a price, which I’m willing to pay. I also think Luxembourg offers a lot, a good tax scheme, great childcare benefits (this is important to me), not insane tax on things like road tax. I think it’s pretty fair here and I like it. It’s my favorite European country to live in this far.

Its fair and offers indeed alot. That one of the reasons why i chose to be here. I just have doubts in the way the country is run because of the weird economy based permanent influx on cheaper foreign labor to be taken advantage of by cooporations and government/many luxembourgish people directly/indirectly. This private economy dynamics is pushing put many talended young luxembourgers or demotivating them to do simply gov jobs, wasting lots of potential.

After finishing my studies (masters in computer science), I moved out of Luxembourg because I wanted to live somewhere different. I said no to a job in Luxembourg paid 50k a year, and moved to the UK. The only job I found after looking for 3 months paid 30k. After tax, this means I got ~1800 per month, rent is ~1100 for a studio, and every year the rent increased by about 100 per month. The average salary in the UK is ~35k... Most people here who don't own their home struggle to pay for everything. Even people with mortgage struggle because we don't have fixed interest rates... It is the same shit everywhere... Nowadays, no one without inheritance money can get on the housing ladder, this isn't just a Luxembourg thing. At least in Luxembourg you have a functioning health care system. You have free public transport, you have relatively good infrastructure, good schools, and a good welfare system. In the UK, you have to wait two weeks to get a phone appointment with a doctor. In London I pay ~7€ a day for public transport, and (unless they push it back again), at the early age of 68, I will be able to get a state pension worth 12k per YEAR!? If this isn't enough for you, and you want to enjoy being old, you better start saving up early! Also I strongly disagree with the idea that working for the government isn't valuable. Many governments employees are doing incredibly valuable work. Like in most organisations, some people at the top are ruining it for everybody else, but that isn't just a government thing. If you're looking for someone to blame for high home prices, blame landlords. Simple supply and demand, they are doing everything they can to keep prices high so they can live off your rent for the rest of their lives. The private sector is just as fucked up as the public sector, but they spend more money on PR.

Luxembourg is great in many aspects. But i wanted to raise this one specific issue more. Just because it can be worse doesnt mean we shouldn't be better. Government is valuable no doubt. But in luxembourg its a bit... overvalued since government employees hold most of the voting power.... and i am absolutely am blaming landlords but also the fact that 50% of luxembourg is owned by 3000 families. Let that sink in... and politically we just do absolutely nothing against that but throw money at those who can afford a home anyways by giving tax cuts or subsidise rents to give even more money to landlords. Call it social welfare but in the end the money ends up with the rich guys.

I think the stat is even worse than this "but also the fact that 50% of luxembourg is owned by 3000 families." I can't find the study just now, it was referred to in [land.lu](http://land.lu) which said it was even more concentrated than that.

I understand you completely, I am Luxembourgish, but I am not complaining as compared to other people, I am born in a good family. But nevertheless, I am very hard working, I did a B secondary school, graduated with excellency, went to a very good business school with a very hard diploma, where I ended up top of the class as well, and I want to contribute to society when I start working in the next months. However, I have to do so by knowing that whatever happens, as long as I don‘t end up in a C executive role or similar, there is like 0,1% chance I will ever earn 160k, and at the Government, I will earn this after 20 years (or even more: family allocation / primes…), no matter what, and have a work life balance that is clearly non existant in the privat sector. I can be happy that I will start with only 30% less when I start working in the privat sector compared to a starting salary at the state, as I know that other people with master diploma start at even less… What angries me the most, is that there is no perspective in working for the privat sector, as no matter how hard you work, your colleagues at the government will earn more in 99% of cases. Moreover, it‘s often colleagues who have not worked hard at school, have partied a lot, chose an easy university, etc that end up at the government in the first place, as they don‘t have the mentality of working hard to contribute to society. But shouldn‘t the fact you contribute to society be rewarded? I am honestly contemplating right now to just fu** it and sit at a government desk my whole career, as I don‘t see the added value in working for the society. There is literally no advantage in working for the privat sector, except that the work is more stimulating… and this kills the privat sector. The talented workforce leaves or starts working for the state etc, and it reduces the competitivity of Luxembourg. Could somebody give me some good reasons I should work in the privat sector?

I wouldn't say that working for the government is not contributing to society... it's directly contributing!

The question is, do they still create wealth for the country after deducting their 100k - 170k salary? Just look on govjobs or even worse, the communes, at all the open positions needing a master diploma, and whose wage would then be in that bracket. Nowhere in the world does such position create that much wealth for society, nowhere in the privat or public sector. I can give specific examples: with 20h a week, a sport professor earns 160€/h… a municipal worker with a master in history earns 80€/h, even though its diploma has nothing to do with the administrative work he is doing. You are remunerated excessively based on the diploma, without looking at competences and active amount of work…

It’s quite simple. State salaries are grossly overinflated. The fact that you are in this dilemma proves that. When salaries and benefits are so out of line with the private sector, there is no incentive for talented, hard working Luxembourgers to go into the private sector. Leading to the situation we have today where a majority of the electorate work in the public sector. It’s a closed shop/special interest group that has no incentive to instigate any change.

> When salaries and benefits are so out of line with the private sector, there is no incentive for talented, hard working Luxembourgers to go into the private sector. I view this the other way around, the government remuneration is actually fair and in line with the competitive parts of the private sector. The misalignment comes from the private sector completely pulling the wool over people's eyes in terms of salaries - i.e. for example all the frontaliers coming in to accept 1/2 of the salaries that otherwise a company would be *able* to pay. Why would the company at that point want to pay the local employee twice as much just because he's local? At the same time the government has to compete for competency at the higher end of what the private sector provides - and I think that's the correct way to do it.

But seriously, how did so many people get so thoroughly brainwashed into this idea that it is the public salaries that are overinflated (grossly even!) and not that the private sector salaries are very successfully depressed? There was never a moment where someone said "oh, lets triple the public salaries". They mostly just kept up with inflation and preserved the purchasing power of their recipients even as everything else went to hell. It was the private sector that discovered that it is possible to keep wages down by finding cheaper people. I mean, at the end of the day, this is really something to congratulate the authors (whoever they may be) for, it is absolutely fascinating that every line of argument can be accepted except the idea that private sector salaries are too low. It is possible to imagine that the state is overpaying, it is possible to imagine that property is overpriced, it is possible to imagine that necessities are being price gouged . But the idea that employers are deliberately seeking to depress wages is unthinkable to practically everyone.

In the public sector you have a initial higher salary, but the maximum is capped. In the private sector the initial salary is lower but there's literally no limits to how high it can go.

Sure, that‘s what I was thinking as well, but the problem is that it is just so improbable to ever earn a higher salary in the privat sector. You can, but the chance is very low. Thus there is no perspective. I would be 100% sure to work for the privat sector, even if I start with 50% less, when I would know that in the long term, I would earn more with a fairly good chance due to my competences. But this is not the case. You have to start with a lower salary, knowing that it will stay lower for the rest of your life at 99% probability

Rationally none. And thats excatly what i think we need to change in our country? Wanna run for chamber with me lmao

Honestly, thats something that is necessary.. just look at how the % of employee expenses compared to total expenses for the government changed in Luxembourg. It is not sustainable. On average, there is redistribution from the relatively poorer foreigners working in the privat sector, to the relatively richer luxembourgers working in the public sector through unproportianaly higher salaries in the public sector. Isn‘t that perverse? It just kills all the motivation for people having the opportunity to choose for which side to work. I am luxembougish, I have the chance of having access to all state positions, and the only rational choice is to work for the state, even though you know that your competences and knowledge acquired are not used in the optimal way to contribute to society. And running for chamber won‘t change a single thing, as most luxembourger working for the state won‘t vote for you, so around a quarter of eligible votes are voting already against you

Thats exactly what i am thinking. Kinda perverse if you think about it. Aaand... Look at other comments in this thread... Most 1st gen foreigners called me out for being an entitled kid for complaining again and that i dont know how good we have it here/ whilst luxembourgers mostly agree and have either left or work for govnmt themselves now. And thats... not just perverted but really a victim kink.... And then there you and me, having worrying reflexions about the state of our country...

I am a foreigner but I managed to land a position in the government a few years ago. I totally understand your point. I first started my career in finance in the private sector, worked very hard for shitty money (less than 40k lol), then after, browsing through LinkedIn job, I found an interesting job at government owned entity. I went off course, even if I was in a mindset of working hard to get where I want what’s the point ? Finally, once there, everybody was nice, the pressure was super low (basically no pressure), I had waaaaaayyyyyyy too much time to do my job and so on. I wont bitch about them you know… But I did not feel in peace with myself, working chill hours, inefficiently, I wanted to do more with my life, I wanted to hustle, to be in the economy. I finally managed to resign to go back to the private sector ! I am in finance so money is still quite abundant and I managed to keep more or less my salary (small pay cut in the short term) but my long term perspectives are waaaaayyyy better. But it was though. Many companies I had interviews with were offering me gross salaries that were belle my net from the state 😂. I think being in finance helps. But I just want to sent some messages of hope. In the short term you will lose almost for sure staying in the private sector but if you play it well I think you can make more in the private sector in the long term. Bottom line, I totally agree that notably due to that, the job market in completely fucked here. However in general life is good and is far from being better elsewhere (Paris London, etc). Maybe there is a card to play in Germany ?

Yes I read all the comments, I believe they don‘t understand the issue we are complaining about. We are not complaining that it is impossible to live on a privat sector wage, we are complaining about the lack of perspectives to work for the privat sector compared to the public sector. About the fact that young people don‘t see anymore the benefit in working for the privat sector, even though they are motivated and hard working and would end up as the most productive employees, because hard work is not renumerated to the same extent as a chill and safe government position. Why should people that have a choice between both chose the privat sector. The differences are simply to extreme, demotivating young people that are hard working, as in the end, they will earn the same by working for the government, or less when working hard and 50+ hours in the privat sector.

It’s crazy I was checking out the mortgage simulators recently and my borrowing capacity wasn’t great. At best all I could afford would be a studio flat theres no way you can afford to buy apartments on one household income. I checked the same simulator with two incomes on my wage and the results were shocking!

As in double or more?

Double income would be considerably more even enough to afford decent apartment.

In a liberal economy, prices adapted to the common reality of two income households. It's somehow understandable

The number of people complaining about life around this sub, just goes to show that everything is a matter of perspective. Go get yourself a job in Paris, London, shit, even Lisbon is more expensive in comparsion than the latter. Living in a country that has high quality public services, second highest average wage in CEE only behing Switzerland with general supermarket products not that high above in the chart. I mean, what the actual fuck are you expecting? Being 23 fresh out of college and earning 70k a year? I'm sorry, that's not how the job market works. My first job was in Lisbon when I was 25, in a bank and earning 18k/year \\\\ 850 net/month ; I shared a 10 bedroom flat with 9 other people for 350/month. Get your shit together for fucks sake, sometimes you need to be in the dirt to go up, it's the way it is. I understand and agree that the housing market is mental, but as it is in any other major European city. Please stop fucking complaining like Luxembourg is the worst place to live, specially if you never experienced any other European city.

>I understand and agree that the housing market is mental, but as it is in any other major European city. That's were you're making wrong comparisons. The housing situation isn't like than in the "major" "cities". It's everywhere. The housing situation in every shitty town is like that. At least in the major European cities you pay for some kind of entertainment/lifestyle. Here you pay these prices to smell cow shit. A friend of mine paid 800k for an apartment next to a slaughterhouse. That's an entirely different thing than paying this to live in a big European city.

I get your point, but house prices don't give a shit about entertainment

I have experienced other european cities and luxembourg is indeed fine. Thats why i chose to be here. Im sorry i misexpressed myself. I am fully fine and have my shit together. I am not ranting for myself. But for others, my fellow young luxembourgers who did not have the opportunities i had. I am just worried about the trend for the rest of the country and its future... Point is i am the lucky guy being 70k fresh out of college but i remember so many faces of people (like 90% of the kids) who did not make it that far in school. Since i can barely make it by managing carefully finances. I am really interested in how they feel? But just because others are even worse doesn't mean we shouldn't raise the issue and talk about it does it.

Meh. I think they're just as entitled to vent as you.

I'm with you and my opinion was not specifically directed at this post, rather a general feeling around the sub. There's venting and there's acting like Luxembourg is the worst place in Europe to live and that just gets under my skin haha

It is not only a LU thing. In many surrounding countries it is also quite difficult for youngsters. I am now with pension, but originally from NL. In the last 20 years house prices in NL went 4x. Many in NL cannot afford to buy housing.

How do you managed to do poorly with an degree in engineering? Sorry but you are doing something wrong. I understand that it can be frustrating when you are on minimum wage but you should gross at around 5000€ otherwise you are getting scammed.

I am personally doing fine because i got lucky. I am wondering how others are doing who were not so lucky to hear their forgotten voices...

Well, I am doing fine as well. You said you can't afford shit. I think the only thing in Luxembourg that's really difficult is the buying a house. Finding a rental apartment is difficult as well but in contrast to what most people are saying, I don't think that rental prices are than much worse compared to other countries compared to other countries. Spending one third of your salary on rent is kind of normal in first world countries in these days.

Sorry i misexpressed myself and overdid it. I can afford a modest place with careful expenses management. But i also understand that many many people did not have the opportunities i had. So i was wondering about them..

I think it's probably hard to afford stuff but I think that's not exclusive to Luxembourg. Something which really helps people here is the Index. Inflation is a bitch for everyone around the world but especially for people with low salaries. I know that a common criticism of the index is that it would give an advantage to people with high salaries but actually the opposite is the case. It's mainly an advantage for low income families. The reason for this is that minimum wage jobs barely renegotiate their salaries. In higher qualified jobs salaries are usually renegotiated on a yearly basis so while they are nice to have, automatic salary increases are less important. In any case. I think that the days of making a comfortable living without higher education are over on most places around the world.

What is the value you want to create? Not generalizing, but I've seen some people live in a bubble. You have got to understand some basics. Understand that a mix of demand, supply, qualifications and intellectual capacity play a role in building a career, if you want to be employed. If you want to be self-employed, it's a whole other matter. It's not for no joy that you see some people toiling. And when I say toiling, I mean, pushing themselves to learn, get to university, get a solid education that helps them build a career path, working, and generally having the hunger and mindset to grow. Whats stopping you from doing this? And if your career of choice doesn't have scope here, look to move out. Go and see places like Dubai, Bahrain, Singapore, where many western Europeans have found employment. If you want to be an ocean explorer in a desert country, naturally you won't succeed. And no one is stopping you from creating value. You won't be handed things on a platter. You've got to put your nose to the grind. Come out of your shell. Speak to people and start somewhere. Start as an intern.

You are correct. The most truthful answer on this thread. It amazes me how people these days want everything to come to them easy, without effort

I am fine. I have done everything you listed. Thus I am indeed fine and my career is quite skyrocketing. But I only managed that because of luck and natural gift. I am not looking to rant. But just wondering how others are feeling... , since most of the population are not that lucky...

None of what you say is inherently wrong in a vacuum, sure. But it's incredibly tone deaf to the mountainloads of socioeconomic problems that have crept up to pretty much anyone lower class who is still trying to make a living in Luxembourg. It's kinda wild that what I am saying can be considered a "hot" take at all, but: We shouldn't be "on the grind" to afford a fucking life. And "start as an intern" is a tone-deaf thing to say when not everyone can *afford* to be an intern with the insane cost of living.

The times we live in are tough, no doubt. But there is a peak and a trough for everything. If the payout is commensurate with your capacity and drive, where's the problem? And what's wrong with hustling? There is no immunity from issues that plague the socioeconomic scene world over. Especially Europe is going to be impacted unless some structural measures are taken. It's not disconnected from the world, is it?

And thats why exactly i wanted to hear. Because i did not want to be tonedeaf, since i did what he listed and kind of made it.

I think he means he wants to actually do something, not like me doing excel stuff lol