This is one of the “big problems” of the French economy identified by Sébastien Lecornu: “The French, when they work, are productive. On the contrary, they go to work too late and leave too early,” the prime minister judged on Tuesday during his general policy statement.
An observation confirmed by the figures. According to Eurostat, 75.1% of people between 20 and 64 years old were employed in France in 2024, a level lower than the European average (75.8%) and significantly lower than that of some of our neighbors such as Germany (81.3%) or the Netherlands (83.5%).
The employment rate exceeds 78% in three French regions
Although the various pension reforms, including the 2023 one (now suspended), have contributed to the increase in the employment rate of older people in recent years, France’s results in this area remain mediocre, with some regions of the territory lagging behind.
To verify this, just consult the latest data from Eurostat, which recently provided an update on the objective set by the EU of reaching an employment rate of 78% for people between 20 and 64 years of age in 2030.
Using the territorial division “NUTS 2” that divides the continent into 243 regions (for France this nomenclature corresponds to the 22 old regions, before the new division in 2016), the European Institute of Statistics observes that 113 have already reached or exceeded 78%, that is, almost one in two (46.5%). Among them, only three are French: Aquitaine (78.7%), the Center region (78.6%) and Brittany (78.2%), but none appear among the 100 regions with the highest employment rate.
Regions with industrial tradition and outermost regions that are lagging behind
If Franche-Comté (77.9%), Pays de la Loire (77.7%), Alsace (77.4%), Midi-Pyrénées (77.1%) or Ile de France are not so far from the goal, other metropolitan regions are particularly behind, such as Nord-Pas de Calais (69.6%), Languedoc-Roussillon (70.3%), Lorraine. (72.9%) or the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region (72.9%).
Broadly speaking, Eurostat classifies regions with a low employment rate into two groups. Firstly, those “sparsely populated rural areas or those located on the periphery of the EU”. “This trend was especially marked in the southern regions of Spain and Italy, in much of Greece, in some areas of Romania and in the outermost regions of France,” explains the institute.
The other group is made up of regions with an industrial past and “that have not adapted economically.” “Some of them have suffered the negative impact of globalization in traditional sectors of their economy (such as coal mining, steel or the textile industry). We can cite as an example a group of regions that extends from the northeast of France to the Walloon Region (Belgium),” underlines Eurostat.
Ultimately, around one in four EU regions (65) have an employment rate below 73.5%.
Regions with an employment rate greater than 85%
On the contrary, the prize for the highest employment rate within the EU goes to the Finnish region of Åland (86.4%). A special case, however, as it is an archipelago populated by just over 30,000 inhabitants. Next come the regions that usually host a large and economically dynamic city: the Warsaw region in Poland (86.2%), Bratislava in Slovakia (85.4%), Budapest in Hungary (85.3%), Utrecht in the Netherlands (85.3%) or Prague in the Czech Republic (85.1%).
Some countries also stand out with employment rates for people aged 20 to 64 above 78% in all or almost all of their regions. This is especially the case for the Netherlands (12 out of 12 regions), the Czech Republic (8 out of 8 regions), Denmark (5 out of 5 regions), Ireland (3 out of 3), Sweden (8 out of 8), Germany (35 out of 38) and even Slovakia (3 out of 4).
Low employment rates among young people and older people
The causes of the low employment rate in France are known. A few months ago, the Council for Economic Analysis (CAE) recalled that “starting in the 1970s, France experienced a historic decline in the number of hours worked per inhabitant.” Not because the employed work less but precisely because there are not enough employed people. Consequently, “the French today work an average of 100 hours a year less than the Germans and the British, and 300 hours less than the Americans,” underlines the CAE.
The organization specifies that “this low employment rate is not to blame in the intermediate ages, in the group of 30 to 54 years, where no difference in employment is observed with the United States, Germany or the United Kingdom. On the other hand, France stands out for lower employment rates among young people and older people who drop out of school after the age of 60.”
In fact, France is characterized by a greater number of young people who only study, while Germany and the United Kingdom have more young people who combine studies and employment. The proportion of young people who are neither in employment, education nor training (NEET) is also higher in France. Because they stop working earlier, French seniors are also less likely to get a job than our neighbors. Although the gap tends to reduce with the rise of pension reforms.
Finally, the total number of working hours of low-skilled people has decreased by 40% in the last 30 years. An evolution “specific to France and which cannot be explained by demographic factors”, points out the CAE, which notes “the collapse of the activity rate of the least qualified, both among women and men”, without being able to identify the real causes of this phenomenon.
Source: BFM TV
