Critical end to 2023 with new additions in fourth quarter

This start of the year looks like the way of the cross for the newly appointed government. In addition to controlling peasant anger, capable of erupting at any moment, we now have to curb the confirmed deterioration in the labor market. According to figures published by Dares this Thursday, January 25, in the fourth quarter of 2023 (all of France excluding Mayotte) there will be an average of 3,033,300 people without any activity (category A). An increase of 0.2% (or 4,800 more people), this is the second consecutive increase. Adding individuals with persistently reduced activity (categories B and C), their number rises to 5.4 million. There the progress was more marked (+1%, or 54,000).

These figures sound like a warning to new Labor Minister Catherine Vautrin. The former president of Grand Reims, who was appointed in mid-January, inherited an expanded scope compared to his predecessor Olivier Dusaupt, with the addition of health and solidarity to his portfolio. An expanded room for maneuver should allow him to resume the war for full employment. Despite the current trend, the Head of State refused to abandon his key 2022 campaign promise. During his speech in mid-January, the tenant of the Elysée launched work routes, viz “Labor Market Reform Act 2” expected “Next Spring”. He also explained that he wanted to develop for the unemployed “Stricter rules when job offers are rejected and better support”.

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The Rise of France Travel

In the short term, the Minister will have to look at agreements, if any, between unions and employers on seniors’ work and career paths. Negotiations are part of the continuation of pension reform and should make it possible to achieve it “Full Employment of Seniors”. Concretely, measures developed by representatives of employees and employers, which will later be the subject of one or more laws, must increase the employment rate of people aged 60-64 from 36.2% to 65% in 2022. “By 2030”. A very definite objective. It will also need to support the rise of the new public operator France Travel (formerly Polle Employe), which was created on 1^er January. Behind the name change, this change should allow better support for RSA recipients but also facilitate the transition to hiring small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This voluntariness, however, seems insufficient in the short term for any hope of reversing the unemployment curve. According to forecasters, rates should continue to rise in the coming months. At the most pessimistic, it could even be around 8% at the end of 2024, according to the Bank of France.