2023-10-25 19:08:10
By Thomas Engrand
Published 8 hours ago, Updated 38 minutes ago
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With 17,400 more registered, the number of unemployed job seekers increased by 0.6% in the third quarter in France.
Usually quick to highlight good news on the job market in a tweet, the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, this time chose to remain silent. It must be said that the figures for job seekers in the third quarter, published this Wednesday by Dares, offer little reason to rejoice.
Everywhere the lists are growing, starting with that listing people without any activity – category A -, up 0.6% over three months, or 17,400 more registered, for a total of 3,028,500 in France entire, excluding Mayotte. The scenario is the same if we include the part-time work suffered, i.e. employees who work while actively looking for other work in parallel and which Pôle emploi groups into categories B and C. The three entities combined, the trend is more measured , but still positive by 0.2 points, or 8,800 more people out of a total of 5,352,000 job seekers.
These figures sound like the end of a golden parenthesis that began at the end of the Covid crisis for the labor market in France. During this period, 1.3 million jobs were created in the country. A historic figure which has resulted in the continued decline in the number of people registered with Pôle emploi. Between the second quarter of 2020, in full confinement, and today, category A has decreased by 31%. Going from 4,396,800 job seekers to 3,025,500. A trend that the government would have liked to see continue to achieve full employment. An ambition set by the President of the Republic, whose chances of success continue to diminish.
Reasons for hope
This reversal, however, is only half a surprise for economists, many of whom were counting on an inversion of the curves in the more or less short term. “We have all the symptoms of a slowing labor market,” underlines Bruno Coquet, economist expert on the subject. The main sign is, according to him, in the drop in exits from lists for “resumption of employment”, the number of which per quarter fell by almost 8% over one year. They only represent 16.5% of exits. The main reason remains the cessation of registration for lack of updating.
The slowdown in economic activity does not make it possible to continue creating enough jobs to continue the decline in unemployment. And improvement is not for tomorrow. “Fluctuations in the labor market lag two quarters behind those in economic activity”, according to Bruno Coquet. In short, even in the event of a rapid restart of activity, we should not expect to see an improvement by the end of 2023. Pessimism confirmed by the OFCE and the Banque de France, which predict all two a deterioration of the situation in the coming months.
France must “emerge from a collective imagination built since the first pre-retirement programs in the 1970s and in which those over 50 supposedly have no place in the job market”
Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, Renaissance MP
However, there are reasons for hope. Thus, dismissals for personal reasons decreased over the quarter (-1.4%) while resignations continued to increase (+0.8%). At the same time, the number of unemployed people receiving compensation is maintained, while the duration of compensation has been reduced by 25%. These indices tend to suggest that the labor market remains fluid, with greater turnover than in the past and therefore fewer French people moving away from employment over the long term.
In addition, the number of seniors in category A continues to decrease, albeit slightly (-0.1%) over the quarter. At the heart of debates during the pension reform, the employment of seniors will be at the heart of the discussions of the social partners, who are awaiting a framing letter from the government on the subject in the coming days. Several measures were put forward during the pension reform, without ever achieving unanimity, such as the creation of a “Senior Index”, criticized by employers, or a “Senior CDI”, with reductions in social charges to make these more competitive profiles. France especially needs “to escape from a collective imagination built since the first pre-retirement programs in the 1970s and in which those over 50 supposedly have no place in the job market”, points out Renaissance MP Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet. A Malthusianist vision that future discussions could send back to the past. “I am hopeful that these discussions will lead to progress. Everyone has an interest in it. Unions because that’s what employees expect. Companies because they are experiencing unprecedented recruitment tensions. The State because it provides so many points of growth and additional contributions to finance our public services and continue debt reduction”wants to believe MP Renaissance.
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