With 17,700 fewer positions, salaried employment falls very slightly in the private sector in the third quarter

Employment is experiencing a slight drop. The number of employees decreased by 17,700 between the end of June and the end of September, a decrease of 0.1% according to the provisional estimate published this Friday by INSEE. This is the second quarter of quasi-stability (+0.1% in the previous quarter), after several quarters of clear increase in 2021 and 2022, the Institute highlights.

Private salaried employment exceeds its level from a year before by 0.7% (that is, +138,800 jobs) and that before the health crisis -end of 2019- by 6.0% (that is, +1.2 million jobs). In detail, temporary employment, the compass of the labor market, falls for the third consecutive quarter. In the third quarter, this sector fell 1.9% (-15,300 jobs), after -0.5% in the second quarter (that is, -4,300 jobs) and -2.5% in the first quarter (-20,400 jobs). Temporary employment is slightly below its level prior to the health crisis (-0.5%).

Slight increase in the industry

Excluding temporary work, private salaried employment increases “moderately” in industry and decreases in construction and in the non-market tertiary sector, notes INSEE. Private industrial wage employment increased by 0.2% (i.e. +6,400 jobs, after +5,300 jobs in the previous quarter). After reaching its pre-crisis level in the fourth quarter of 2021, it now exceeds it by 2.2% (i.e. 68,300 net jobs created since the end of 2019).

In construction, private salaried employment decreases again in the third quarter of 2023: -0.3% (i.e. -4,800 jobs), after -0.5% in the second quarter (i.e. -7,300 jobs). job). It remains well above its level at the end of 2019 (+7.1%, or +104,400 jobs). In the commercial tertiary sector, excluding temporary work, private salaried employment remained stable in the third quarter, after +0.2% in the second quarter (i.e. +900 jobs after +21,600 jobs). It far exceeds the pre-crisis level (+7.7% or +898,300 jobs).

Finally, in the non-market tertiary sector, private salaried employment decreased slightly in the third quarter of 2023: -0.2% (i.e. -4,200 jobs), after the stability of the second quarter of 2023. It exceeds the level at the end of 2019 by 4.3% (i.e. +111,700 jobs).