In one sentence, Emmanuel Macron transported his audience to a golden age that France has left for decades: it is necessary ” to aim (…) full employment “, declared the President of the Republic during his speech on November 9. The formula can only strike the spirits in a country where mass unemployment is deeply encysted. It also suggests that new ambitions are emerging at the highest summit of the state.
During the race for the supreme magistracy in 2017, Mr. Macron had charted a course: reduce from 9.5% to 7% the share of the unemployed in the workforce, by the end of the term of office. This commitment, which seemed to be a challenge with the recession triggered by the Covid-19 epidemic, has become credible again, thanks to the strength of the recovery. “The program provided for 1.3 million additional jobs in five years”, recalls the economist Jean Pisani-Ferry, who played a key role in the campaign team of the candidate of En Marche! Gold, “In the summer of 2021, we are not far from 1 million jobs [en plus] since the start of the five-year term “, he adds, adding up the increases recorded for salaried and self-employed workers: “This would augur on arrival a result fairly in line with the initial costing”, argues Mr. Pisani-Ferry, while specifying that ” hazards “ remain.
As for the unemployment rate, it is today at 8.1% for the whole of the territory (including overseas, except Mayotte) and could decline to 7.6% over the last three months of the year. year, according to INSEE forecasts. A ratio that is close to the goal that Mr. Macron set for himself. But the tenant of the Elysée intends to do better: “We must not aim for only 7% unemployment”, he said, on November 9. Its horizon is therefore full employment now.
“Incompressible unemployment”
What percentage must you go down to find yourself in such a configuration? The answer, which the head of state refrained from delivering, is anything but obvious. “It is very difficult to identify the level at which full employment is situated”, confides Jean-Luc Tavernier, the director general of INSEE. Although this notion has idyllic connotations, it “Does not mean that all working people have work”, continues Yannick L’Horty, professor at Gustave-Eiffel University (Paris-Est). “There remains, in fact, a ‘frictional’ unemployment attributable to the fact that a minimum of time is necessary to be hired, after leaving a position or when starting a professional career”, he explains.
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