Audrey Louail has finally managed to hire workers in the technology she needs. This is only possible because its rivals cut the workforce.
“I had a lot of problems to recruit last year, but now there are enough people on the market,” said the CEO of the Scriel IT services group.
A survey of the network of more growing growth companies, which Louail directs shows, shows that a third of its 11,000 members planned to reduce staff this year in the midst of a low economic prospect and an imminent budgetary pressure.
“This is the first time that has been so bad since Covid,” she said about the survey.
Official data and commercial surveys paint an image of aggravation of the labor market in the second economy of the euro zone – undermining the efforts of President Emmanuel Macron to push France Full employment, often defined as an unemployment rate of around 5%.
The employment rate contracted for the first time in a decade at the end of last year, according to the INSEE statistical agency. The figure of the aged 16 to 25 fell more strongly, although youth unemployment remains much lower than before Macron takes up his duties.
“We are at a tilting point,” said Olivier Rédoulè, director of Rexecode Research Institute.
Although job losses have not yet increased, he added: “We are starting to see the first signs of the labor market in the wrong direction – and if that happens, it can take a long time to repair themselves”.
Fear of unemployment households climbs.
PMI surveys highlight reductions in the widespread workforce, while the growth of France's wages was the lowest among major economies in the past year, according to the job search site indeed.
“The weakening of the labor market is very clear,” said Charlotte de Montpellier, main economist at ING, who believes that the French job market will underline Germany due to greater political uncertainty and border expenses for the hiring of the public sector.
Corporate bankruptcies rise and layoffs accumulate, especially in large companies such as the Auchan retailer and the Michelin Tyremaker where they firmly two factories.
The flow of bad news caused a recovery on March 1 of the state subsidized program which helped companies cling to workers thanks to locking from the era of the time.
The only indicator that remains stable is unemployment, which on INSEE measurement was 7.3% at the end of 2024, almost the lowest level since the early 1980s.
The hiring ignition marks a break in a boom of jobs that started well before the pandemic, while previous reforms reducing labor costs, serving employment protections and reducing the taxes of societies abandon the fruits.
Since 2020, the workforce has increased by more than a million, fueled by the age of increasing pension and subsidies to learning and vocational training.
These gains have not reversed.
“Ten or 15 years ago, unemployment would increase (two figures) if growth fell below 1.5%,” Stéphane Carcillo, principal economist at the OECD. “Now, even with GDP growth less than 1%, unemployment is less than 8%. It's quite new.”
The governor of Banque de France, François Villeroy de Galhau, said unemployment was held “relatively well” on Friday and had to reach 7.5% or 8% at the end of the year, below the forecasts of previous analysts.
But the biggest question is whether France can support recent employment gains, which economists consider crucial to expand the tax base and repair the seriously degraded public finances of the country.
“More people in employment mean more resources,” said Carcillo.
A recent note in the government's analyzed Congseil economy shows where France is absent. Adults aged 16 to 74 operate 100 hours less per year on average than in the United Kingdom or Germany. It is not because of shorter weeks of work, but because so many young people and the elderly do not work at all.
France reduces the longtime gap on the maintenance of the elderly in jobs. Those in their fifties are now more likely to work than in the United Kingdom or the United States and the reforms spent on pensions are gradually feeding on the over 60s.
Safran, an aeronautical and defense group, has experienced an increasing popularity of “progressive retirement” among elderly workers who allow them to work four days a week, while retaining 90% of their salary. The group continues to pay its complete retirement contributions to the State, so the worker has no penalty when he stops working.
But young people take much more time than in the United Kingdom or in Germany to find their first job after leaving education, and far too many of them are not in education, work or training of any kind.
“The labor market for young people is lower now than a few months ago,” said Gérald Jasmin, who heads the French unit of Adecco. About 40% of books from the books from the temporary work agency are under 25 years old.
Joseph Tayefeh, secretary of plastic Makers 'association' Association, said that the reductions in learning subsidies in the new France budget “do not help”, because his sector has often used them to train young people.
The group saw the overall overall in the construction and cosmetics sectors, and Tayafeh said it received many requests for the government's new leave program.
“The climate is quite gloomy in Plastic Valley,” he said, referring to the Southeast area where the industry is concentrated.
The CAE called for a broader reassessment of state support to the labor market, arguing that France spends much more than its neighbors on labor market policies, with only modest results.
“We spend a lot for things targeting unemployment … which are relatively ineffective,” said Camille Landais, the CAE chair. “We must think more carefully about how we have people who do not participate in the labor market to participate.”
While certain reforms, including a large overhaul of support for the unemployed, take place, from Galhau, the governor of the Central Bank, recently called to rethink tax alleviations which cost public finances around 2.7% of GDP – supporting the use of workers who could have been hired anyway.
The situation remains precarious for the most vulnerable workers in France.
In the north of the country, the automaker Renault does not renew half of the 600 temporary workers he had on the staff alongside the 1,850 employees of the Sandouville factory which manufactures vans.
“We are struck by a lower demand … Like all car manufacturers,” said Fabien Gloaguen, a factory union leader. “Renault cuts workers at temperature because it is more flexible and can be reversed quickly if things improve.”
Visualization of data by Oliver Roeder in London
