The damage caused by the health crisis is gradually fading, without being fully repaired. From the beginning of April to the end of June, the number of job seekers without any activity (category A) fell by 1.3%, standing at 3.75 million throughout the country (including overseas, except Mayotte), according to data published Tuesday, July 27, by the Dares – the directorate in charge of studies at the Ministry of Labor. After peaking at 4.4 million in the spring of 2020, this indicator continues to decline, while remaining above the level that prevailed before the recession caused by the Covid-19 epidemic.
The decline recorded in the second quarter concerns all age groups but it is more marked for those under 25: – 2.1% (in metropolitan France), against – 1.7% for individuals aged 25 to 49 years and only – 0.3% for seniors. On the other hand, those looking for a position while having worked (categories B and C) see their workforce increase by 1%, throughout France. In total, the number of job seekers, with or without activity (categories A, B and C), fell by 0.5% to go back to just below the six million mark (to 5.984 million).
A less bad record than expected
The statistics released on Tuesday are consistent “What could be expected, given the rebound in growth that we have been witnessing since mid-May, after the gradual lifting of the restrictive measures linked to the third confinement”, comments Mathieu Plane, from the French Observatory of Economic Conjunctures (OFCE). Companies, whose order book is filling up again, are recruiting more: in the second quarter, hiring declarations of more than one month (excluding temporary workers) increased by almost 17%, reaching just over 2, 2 million, which represents a “Historical peak” according to Urssaf, the body that heads the network responsible for collecting social contributions.
The current dynamic should not make us forget that the situation remains deteriorated, with a number of registrants in category A which is both very high and nearly 200,000 higher than that of the last quarter of 2019. But “The labor market is holding up rather well”, judge Mathieu Plane, recalling “The role of shock absorber” played by partial unemployment: this device, deployed on a very large scale for fifteen months, has helped to preserve the workforce of companies forced to close or idle. The introduction of bonuses, a year ago, for employers who recruit young people, also made it possible to limit the damage.
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