“France is experiencing its lowest level of unemployment in 40 years,” Elisabeth Borne greeted Tuesday in a tweet, later deleted. And not in vain, if the employment situation improves in France, it is necessary to go back less to find a level of unemployment as “low” as that of the 4th quarter of 2022 (7.2%) revealed this Tuesday by the Insee* . Apart from the punctual drop of “trompe-l’oeil” in the second quarter of 2020, 7.2% had not been reached since the first quarter of 2008, that is, about 15 years ago and not 40.
The prime minister also caught up in a second tweet saying France had recorded “the lowest level of unemployment for the second time in 40 years” in the fourth quarter. Which this time is fair since, apart from 2008, we have to go back to the third quarter of 1982 to find 7.2% unemployment.
For its part, the employment rate between 15 and 64 years of age remains stable at 68.3%, remaining at its highest level since it was measured by INSEE (1975). While the employment rate with a permanent contract continues to improve to 50.5% (+0.7 points compared to the level prior to the health crisis).
If the unemployment rate falls, France is still far from 5% corresponding to full employment, the target set by the Government at the end of the five-year period. Youth unemployment (15-24 years old), although it has dropped one point between the third and fourth quarters of 2022, continues to be particularly high, at 16.9%. It is still 4.9 points less than its pre-crisis level, but 0.4 points more than at the end of 2021. At 5%, the unemployment rate for people aged 50 and over has decreased 0.7 points in one year and 0.8 compared to its level at the end of 2019.
Among the almost 2.2 million unemployed, 580,000 are long-term unemployed in the 4th quarter of 2022, that is, they have been looking for work for at least a year. This is the lowest level observed since the second quarter of 2009.
An improvement to put into perspective
However, this favorable momentum must be put into perspective by the increase in the “halo around unemployment and underemployment”, both increasing 0.1 point in the quarter, while they tended to decrease in previous quarters when unemployment decreased.
In total, 1.9 million people make up the “halo around unemployment”. These are people who want to work but are not considered unemployed because they are not actively seeking or available to accept work. The share of the halo in the population aged 15 to 64 thus stands at 4.5%, that is, +0.2 points since the end of 2019 and +1 point from its lowest level reached in 2008.
With these “communicating vessel effects, the news about the drop in the unemployment rate must be taken with modesty,” concludes Mathieu Plane, an economist at the French Observatory of Economic Conditions, with AFP.
Another drawback: the share of 15-29 year olds without employment, training or education rose 0.9 points to 12.5% and remained above its pre-crisis level (+0.3 points).
*INSEE’s measurement of the unemployment rate is based on the definition of the International Labor Office. It is carried out through a survey of 110,000 people and must therefore be distinguished from unemployment in the sense of Pôle Emploi, which uses a completely different method.
Source: BFM TV
