Editorial. Reversing the unemployment curve may be a necessary condition for being re-elected to the presidency of the Republic. François Hollande had learned this the hard way. In eighty-five days, we will know if this is a sufficient condition for Emmanuel Macron, who, on the employment front, has succeeded where his predecessor had largely failed.
Against all expectations, after the violence of the shock of the pandemic, the labor market recovered in 2021 in an unprecedented way, with a 12.6% drop in one year in the number of jobseekers without any activity. Not only have the effects of the crisis been erased, but the unemployment curve has resumed its downward slope, to the point of returning to its level of nine years ago, when François Hollande came to power.
France (including overseas) thus has 415,000 fewer unemployed than at the start of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term. If we consider the balance sheet of his four predecessors, only Jacques Chirac had ended his mandate with a positive balance. This is good news for the country, but also for the Head of State.
Atypical situation
As always, attributing the entire evolution of the job market (up or down) to public policies is a figment of the imagination. The unprecedented jolts of the economic situation marked by a year of strong depression in 2020, followed by a spectacular rebound in 2021, with a 7% increase in GDP, make it difficult to draw conclusions. The balance sheet is all the less readable as the economy has been placed under infusion of public money. It will probably take several months to judge the capacity of the labor market to maintain its momentum, once the effects of the support have disappeared.
This atypical situation should not obscure the fact that France is also reaping the benefits of a continuity of economic policies initiated before Emmanuel Macron. The fall in the cost of labor thanks to reductions in social contributions, the reduction in production taxes and the easing of the labor market have made it possible to unlock hiring, at the cost of making certain jobs more precarious. To the credit of the current president, let us also note the success of the promotion of apprenticeship, which is proving to be one of the most effective means of integrating young people into the labor market.
But, when the results on the employment front are tangible, the theme of unemployment has almost disappeared from the political debate. Most presidential candidates are focused on purchasing power, as if returning to full employment had become a subordinate issue. The fact that France still has 6 million registered with Pôle emploi is seen more as a fatality than as a reason for general mobilization. However, who can bring himself to see long-term unemployment remaining at the current level, 13% of young people aged 15 to 29 are not in employment, education or training and that hundreds of thousands of positions do not find takers, sometimes due to a lack of qualifications?
In fact, employment is the best ally of purchasing power. Aiming for full employment means creating the conditions for future wage increases. Less unemployment also means more wealth production, and therefore ultimately more redistribution, an essential mechanism for maintaining the country’s cohesion. It is by attacking the first subject that the second will be settled in large part, and not by continuing to subsidize the standard of living of the French thanks to indebtedness.