From “major and urgent matters” for the daily newspaper of the French quoted by Emmanuel Macron in his address to the French, Wednesday June 22, the re-elected President of the Republic did not omit to quote “means of achieving full employment”. Sign that he has not given up, despite the deterioration of the economic situation, what was one of his campaign objectives. In 2021, the unemployment rate fell to 7.4% of the labor force, a historic low point. Therefore, reaching around a rate of 5%, generally considered to be synonymous with full employment, this bet indeed seemed within reach a few months ago. But the war in Ukraine, the deterioration of the international context and inflation could change the situation somewhat.
With activity up moderately by 2.3% for 2022, we are far from the 4% growth hypothesis adopted by the executive at the start of the year – a figure which will soon be revised – and from the dream of full -employment that accompanied it. But that does not mean that we should fear a sudden rise in the number of unemployed.
“Quite dynamic”
The labor market has had some surprises in store since the Covid-19 crisis. At most we can wait “a halt in the fall in unemployment”, as indicated by the OFCE in its forecasts published on June 9. INSEE is a little more optimistic: although weak, growth in 2022 would result in the creation of 200,000 salaried jobs, “and the unemployment rate would continue to decrease slightly” to reach 7% of the active population, according to Olivier Simon, head of the economic summary division at INSEE.
In the first quarter, while GDP fell by 0.2%, “salaried employment has been quite dynamic”, he argues. The French economy then created 79,000 salaried jobs, despite a more than gloomy climate and a 1.5% drop in consumption. “This is the fifth consecutive quarter of increase in salaried employment”, continues Mr. Simon. It is true that this figure includes work-study workers, who represent a fifth of the increase in the workforce between March 2021 and March 2022. The Banque de France for its part estimates that unemployment will rise slightly, “towards a little less than 8%”around 2023-2024, a level which nevertheless remains lower than that which prevailed before the crisis, but it does not foresee a reversal of the situation.
Productivity has fallen since the crisis, for reasons that experts find difficult to explain: health measures, telework, higher absenteeism…
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