Posted Apr 11, 2023, 6:00 AMUpdated on Apr 11, 2023 at 7:38 am
Even if the measure is widely contested, the extension of the legal retirement age is for the government a powerful vector for improving employment, specifically for seniors. More generally, the full employment bill, which might be presented to the Council of Ministers at the end of May, should include a structural component supposed to give a knockout blow to structural unemployment: France Travail.
This highly anticipated project will be unveiled in the coming weeks. In the absence of details, the pillars are known. Firstly, an in-depth reorganization of all employment players for better support for people looking for work. Second, an increased effort to help employers who want to recruit to… hire.
Resilience
This component will be all the more important since, precisely, recruitment projects remain very high: in the latest edition of their barometer on the labor needs of companies published on Friday, Pôle emploi and the Crédoc expect a little more than 3 million in 2023, i.e. as many as last year, of which 72% in long-term employment, permanent or fixed-term contracts of more than six months. Nearly one in four hiring plans is related to a new activity, a percentage that has been rising steadily since 2017.
“We remain at an extremely high level in France, which does not mark a decline […] Companies continue to submit job offers and to recruit”, underlined the director of studies and performance of the public operator, Stéphane Ducatez.
Knowing that one hiring intention can trigger others, and that the history of this barometer shows that 8 out of 10 projects actually result in at least one hiring, these figures show to what extent the labor market continues to resist.
If hiring intentions remain stable, it is – a notable difference compared to what they were a year ago – thanks to VSEs. Significant variations are also expected depending on the sector: +8.3% in accommodation-catering, +1.8% in personal services, +0.8% in industry, but -5.3% in retail trade.
Despite an unemployment rate that is still high, although falling, at 7.2% of the active population, this proliferation of hiring goes hand in hand with recruitment difficulties. Slightly more than 6 companies planning to hire this year expect to encounter them, 3 points more than in 2022.
Difficult to find a job that escapes it, the palm going to roofers or roofers zinc workers (87.2%), or even a type of business, the gap between VSEs and large groups having narrowed a lot, pointed out Stéphane Ducatez .
And yet, companies manage to hire. Salaried employment increased by 335,000 in 2022, to reach 21 million (26.9 million with the public service), according to INSEE. In fact, despite the extension of recruitment times, 83.4% of job offers of one month or more submitted to Pôle emploi in 2022 were completed, and 7.5% are still in progress.
“Lost” jobs
On the other hand, “only” 6.2% of them were abandoned, for lack of suitable candidates, ie 223,000. The profiles of workers, qualified or not, are particularly concerned.
By extrapolating to all the recruitments made by him or not, the public operator estimates between 308,000 and 470,000 the number of jobs “lost” last year for this reason, including 203,000 to 310,000 sustainable jobs. The range is substantial in absolute terms, but has changed little since it represents 1.14% to 1.74% of total salaried employment at the end of last December, compared to 1 to 1.6% a year earlier .
