Businesses are not finding shoes that fit them. In the second quarter of 2022, France had 362,800 vacant jobs, according to data from the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Labor (Dares) published on Friday and illustrating recruitment tensions. Worrying figures when we know that companies have planned to hire even more in the fourth quarter.
So-called “vacant” jobs, or “positions to be filled”, are defined as “vacant positions, newly created or unoccupied or still occupied and about to become vacant, for which active steps are taken to find the suitable candidate”. .
The number of 362,800 vacant jobs in the 2nd quarter of 2022 is stable compared to the previous quarter, indicates Dares. In detail, it increased sharply in industry (+13%), but fell in the non-market tertiary sector (-5%), construction (-4%) and market tertiary sector (-1%).
All sectors concerned
But it is increasing “very strongly” compared to the situation prevailing before the health crisis: “+ 72% compared to the 4th quarter of 2019”. The increase is generalized to all sectors: + 99% in industry, + 76% in the non-market tertiary sector, + 66% in the market tertiary sector and + 54% in construction.
The job vacancy rate in companies with 10 or more employees in the private sector is 2.41%. In the 4th quarter of 2019, this rate was 1.45%.
A situation that can also be found in the United States, where the American Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, announced that “there are almost two vacancies for every worker looking for a job”. The job market remains, across the Atlantic too, very tight with a major shortage of labour. The unemployment rate, however, rose a little in August, to 3.7%, in particular as the participation rate rose, a sign that many workers left on the side of the road because of Covid are returning to the market.