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Activity is at a standstill, employment too. The employed workforce increased by 11,900 in the fourth quarter of 2023, after an increase of 60,800 jobs over the previous three months, according to final figures from INSEE published this Thursday.
Over one year, the results remain very positive with 150,000 jobs created, even if the slowdown is obvious compared to the years of euphoria that followed the end of Covid. Compared to before the health crisis, that is to say at the end of 2019, the French economy gained 1.3 million jobs, an increase of 5%, a third of which are linked to work-study contracts.
The fourth quarter’s development is the contrasting result of a decline in the private sector (-12,600 jobs), the first since the third quarter of 2018 if we put aside the atypical year 2020, and a new sustained progression in the public sector (+24,500), underlines the national statistical institute.
Temporary work has declined for the fourth quarter in a row. The usual locomotive of the labor market, the commercial tertiary sector has been marking time. Industry, for its part, is doing well with its workforce increasing by 35,500 over one year, still excluding temporary work.
Unemployment insurance in Attal’s sights
The publication of these figures comes shortly after Gabriel Attal threatened the social partners with a new framework letter on unemployment insurance , while the last agreement, concluded in mid-November, is not even implemented yet. It could be sent to them following their negotiation on career paths.
The Prime Minister mentioned a new tightening of the screw on the duration of compensation or the degression of the allowance, without further details. For the government, the compensation rules are still not sufficiently incentivizing the return to work which must always pay better than inactivity.
The executive highlights a still high unemployment rate (7.5% of the active population) and the recruitment difficulties which persist. Even if it remains much higher than its pre-health crisis level, the rate of vacant jobs fell by 6% over the last three months of the year in companies with more than ten employees in the private sector, according to the Ministry of Labour.
To achieve its objective of full employment in 2027, the government is also banking on the France Travail project to reorganize the public employment service. One of its sections concerns a reform of support for RSA beneficiaries which makes the payment of aid conditional on 15 hours of weekly activity. On a trip this Friday to Epinal in the Vosges, Gabriel Attal will announce the 47 employment areas that will join the first 18 to have experienced the reform.
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