Jobseekers count rises anew in Q1 2025, according to the Ministry of Labour, thereby placing France further from achieving full employment.
🚨🧵 Job Seekers on the Rise in France 🧵🚨
Bad news continues to pour in for the French job market as we step into 2025. The initial quarter has proven no less grueling than the end of 2024, with a staggering 8.7% increase in jobless individuals (Category A) registered with France Travail, a figure boasting a whopping 273,000 more unemployed citizens compared to the previous quarter.
dig into the nitty-gritty 🔍
More than 3.4 million folks are now seeking work, making a beeline for France Travail's services across the nation—excluding Mayotte—an inexorable surge marking the steepest increase since 2008 (+3.9%).
dig even deeper 🔎🔎
Expanding our focus to include categories B and C, which encompass those engaged in reduced short activity (<78 hours per month) and those logging more than 78 hours, we find an appalling 5.7 million individuals knocking on employment's door.
🚨📣 Job Seekers Galore! 📣🚨
Before you venture off thinking this is just a temporary snag, ponder this—the annual increase is a mind-blowing 12.8%. That's right, folks; the jobless express just keeps on rolling in.
Here's the kicker, though: these sad statistics are substantially disrupted by a little policy change, the so-called "full employment" law. Since January 1, beneficiaries of active solidarity income (RSA) and jobless youngsters have been automatically registered, resulting in aBOUT 1.1 million new job seekers year-to-date. Damn, that's a lot of competition!
The elephant in the room? Roughly 80,000 RSA recipients are yet to be registered, as per France Travail.
🚨👋 Unemployed, Welcome to 2025! 👋🚨
Taken aback? Don't be. As it stands, France has been experiencing shaky economic growth, year in, year out, with employment picking up nearly 420,000 jobs annually over the last five years—though these stats don't answer the question of what's ailing the job market. One potential factor could be the precipitous 7.4% drop in temporary employment witnessed in February the previous year—an unmistakable sign of a sagging demand in nimble sectors.
🔎 Stepping beyond our shores...
The broader European context suggests a somewhat optimistic picture, with the euro area's unemployment rate at 6.1% in February 2025. This improvement is encouraging but doesn't tell the full story of the grueling French job market.
🏳️🌈 In short, the French job market remains in the red, with unemployment skyrocketing owing to a mix of domestic and global factors. Brace yourself for a rough ride ahead.
- The numbers of job seekers in France have seen a significant rise, with over 273,000 more unemployed citizens registered with France Travail compared to the previous quarter in 2024.
- The increase in jobless individuals was most noticeable in the first quarter of 2025, amounting to an alarming 8.7% compared to the final quarter of 2024.
- This surge in job seekers is not limited to category A alone; a combined count of categories B and C has shown an appalling 5.7 million individuals actively seeking work.
- These concerning job market statistics have been influenced by a policy change called the "full employment" law, which has automatically registered over 1.1 million new job seekers since its implementation on January 1, 2025.
