INSEE published an estimate on Thursday of the number of jobs created in France in the first quarter, indicating in particular that private salaried employment slowed, increasing by 0.3%, or 69,500 net job creations. This increase is virtually unchanged from the flash estimate published on 6 May. In the fourth quarter of 2021, private payroll employment increased by 0.8%, i.e. 167,200 net job creations, ending a good year for employment.
In the civil service, salaried employment increased by +0.2%, or 9,200 net job creations, after a slight drop in the previous quarter, of around 0.1%, or 8,000 jobs. “In total, in the first quarter of 2022, salaried employment exceeded its level of a year earlier by 2.9% (i.e. +750,500 jobs). Nearly a third of this increase over one year is explained by the dynamism of work-study contracts, in particular in apprenticeship, ”indicates INSEE.
Declining temporary employment
For its part, temporary employment fell for the first time in two years, by 1.7%, or nearly 13,800 jobs, after nearly seven quarters of consecutive increases. Regarding salaried employment excluding temporary work, it increased by 0.6% in the commercial tertiary sector, ie a net creation of 78,000 jobs, while industrial employment, excluding temporary work, fell by 0.1% in the first quarter.
Finally, the non-market tertiary sector saw an increase of 16,100 net job creations, ie an increase of 0.2% in the first quarter, against an increase of 0.3% in the previous quarter. On LCI this Thursday, the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt indicated that “between the pre-crisis and the post-crisis period, 750,000 net jobs were created, of which less than a third related to the development of apprenticeship “, contradicting the words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who insists that the unemployment figures are false, being “doped” by the number of apprentices and work-study students.
“Jean-Luc Mélenchon took himself for the Republic and now takes himself for INSEE. It is his right, except that he says things which are false since unemployment is falling. INSEE says it, certifies it and all the organizations say it. (…) INSEE says that there are around 170,000 apprenticeship contracts which contribute to this dynamic of employment”, reacted Olivier Dussopt.