Don’t the French work hard enough? It is a delicate subject, especially in the midst of a social movement against pension reform. Because beyond the issue of the financial balance of the pension system, the other objective pursued by the government with the extension of the legal retirement age is to increase the amount of work in the country and therefore potential growth.
For several years, from Emmanuel Macron to Bruno Le Maire to Olivier Dussopt, the executive has been insisting that the French do not work hard enough compared to their neighbor.
What is it really? If we compare the weekly working time of the French with that of other major economies, there is nothing to be ashamed of. With an average of 36.9 hours a week according to the OECD in 2021, French workers (salaried and self-employed combined) are even above the average of those in the main economies (36.8 hours) and even well above of the countries often considered as an example for their economic success such as Germany (35 hours), Denmark (34.5 hours), the Netherlands (31.4 hours) or Switzerland (36.2 hours). An active Frenchman works on average 2 hours more than a German every week.
The problem is complicated when we take the number of hours worked during a year. With an average of 1,490 hours worked in 2021, the French worker is this time well below the OECD average (1,716 hours) and is even far behind the Italian (1,669 hours), the Spanish (1,641 hours), the Swiss (1533 hours) or the British (1497 hours). More RTT, part-time, non-working… These are the reasons used by OECD economists to explain this French turn.
France almost last
But again, nothing prohibitive when compared to certain high performing economies. As is the case with German workers who, with 1,349 hours a year, work an average of 140 hours less than the French, having a higher GDP per capita. This low number in Germany is mainly explained by the very significant use of part-time work by women in Germany.
The same happens with the Danes (1363 hours), the Dutch (1417 hours) or the Swedes (1444 hours). A productive fabric with high added value as well as a significant participation of the population in the labor market can make it possible to be prosperous even with less work time per person.
But this is where France fails. If we take the amount of annual work not per worker, but this time per inhabitant – that is, including the inactive, retired and unemployed in the calculation – this time the country is almost in last place within the OECD.
According to data provided by the organization to BFM Business, with an average of 630 hours in 2021 (655 in 2022 but the OECD does not have the data for all countries that year), the French are the ones who work the least (just ahead of the Turks). ). The OECD average is 805 hours.
Especially this time, Germany is ahead with 725 hours, or 95 more per year. In Denmark we are at 709 hours, in Sweden 702 hours, in Switzerland 896. Even countries that have a higher unemployment rate than France, such as Spain or Italy, have a higher amount of work per inhabitant than France. It is therefore 685 hours for the Spanish and 704 hours for the Italians.
A French abandonment that is explained by a lower employment time (proportion of people who work in the total population) than in other places. In other words, the active French work a lot, but the French are less active than elsewhere.
If at more than 68%, this employment rate is the highest in France since 1975 according to INSEE, it remains, despite everything, the lowest among the large economies. In Germany more than 77% of the inhabitants were active at the end of 2022, in Denmark it is 76.7%, in the Netherlands 82%, in the United Kingdom 76% or 77% in Sweden. If France had the employment rate of Germany, ie 13% higher, GDP would potentially be 300 billion euros higher (2,354 billion in 2022).
The difficulty of the French labor market lies at both extremes. Young people less trained and more difficult to integrate. Seniors leaving earlier.
“France is struggling to integrate young people into employment, especially the least qualified, and almost as much to keep those over 54 in employment, sums up Antoine Goujard, an economist at the France office of the OECD. France than anywhere else in the OECD: the effective exit age from the labor market is the second lowest of all OECD countries for men and the seventh lowest for women.
The employment rate of those over 55 years of age has certainly increased significantly in the last 20 years in France, but it is still below the European average.
Source: BFM TV
