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Employment & society
20 articles, each with its source and caveats.
"All of Europe has stalled." In Q2 2026, French GDP grew just 0.5% year on year, versus 1.0% in Germany and Italy and 2.7% in Spain.+0.5% French GDP growth year on year in Q2 2026, the weakest of the euro area's four largest economies
"After 55, companies don't keep anyone." Yet it's the only age group where private-sector employment is growing: +2.7% in a year, while it falls for those under 55.+105,400 private-sector employees aged 55 or over added in one year, to end-June 2026, while total private-sector employment fell by 80,900
"France's trade deficit keeps getting worse." It has actually more than halved since its 2022 record — even though the latest known month, July 2026, showed a fresh deterioration.-€61.6bn France's rolling twelve-month trade deficit at end-July 2026, versus -€164bn in 2022
Sep 26"France's labour market is holding up." Yet in Q2 2026 the unemployment rate rose for a fourth straight quarter, to its highest level since the pandemic.8.3% — France's ILO unemployment rate in Q2 2026, its highest level since Q3 2020
Sep 21"The state is making 54 billion in savings." The figure is real — but it is not 54 billion in lower spending: it is the effort needed to stop the deficit slipping to 6.5% of GDP.€54bn — the budget effort the French government proposes for 2027, meant to bring the public deficit back to around 5% of GDP
Sep 21"If petrol is expensive, blame oil." In France, about half the price of unleaded at the pump is not the barrels — it is tax.50% — the share of tax in the price of a litre of SP95-E10 petrol in France (50.1% as of 24 August 2026)
Sep 17"Companies are cashing in on inflation." In the second quarter of 2026, the French corporate profit share did not move at all — and what kept it from falling, the national statistics institute says, was the drop in real wages.31.5% — the gross profit share of French non-financial corporations in the second quarter of 2026
Sep 17"France has never created so many businesses." True: up 10.8% over twelve months. But two in three of those creations are simply sole-trader registrations.66.5% — the share of micro-entrepreneurs among businesses created in France over the first seven months of 2026
Sep 16"Over-indebtedness is exploding." Filings did rise 12.3% in the first half of 2026. In the same barometer, registrations for payment incidents fell 13.1%.−13.1% — the fall in registrations on France's central cheque register in the first half of 2026, while over-indebtedness filings rose 12.3%
Sep 8At the end of 2024, women's own-right pensions in France were 36% lower than men's. Add survivor pensions and the gap falls to 25%. The mechanism that erases a third of it is the one that opens when a spouse dies.36% vs 25% — the gender pension gap in France at end-2024: 36% on own-right pensions alone, 25% once survivor pensions are included (Drees)
Sep 4Expected duration of working life in France in 2025: 37.5 years. In the European Union: 37.5 years. The country described as the one that works least sits exactly on the average — and has done, within half a year, every year since 2002.37.5 years vs 37.5 years — expected duration of working life in France and in the EU27 in 2025 (Eurostat)
Aug 30Announced at +0.2% on 30 July, French second-quarter 2026 growth was cut to 0.0% on 28 August. The first quarter went from 0.0% to −0.2% across three releases.0.0% after +0.2% — French GDP growth in the second quarter of 2026 in Insee's detailed results of 28 August 2026, against the +0.2% announced a month earlier in the first estimate of 30 July
Aug 26Among young people who entered the French labour market in 2017 and held a permanent contract in March 2020, 24% were no longer on one three years later, according to Céreq.24% — the share of the 2017 cohort who, holding a permanent contract in March 2020, were neither on a permanent contract nor civil servants by 2023
Aug 25In 2024, the average net wage in France's private sector barely regained its 2019 level in constant euros. Between 1996 and 2019 it gained 0.6% of purchasing power a year.+0.6%/yr, then 0 — the growth rate of the average full-time-equivalent net wage in the French private sector, in constant euros: +0.6% a year on average between 1996 and 2019, then nothing at all between 2019 and 2024
Aug 20We tend to assume public-sector jobs come with a safer retirement than private-sector ones. Official projections say the opposite.66.6% vs 53% — the replacement rate (net pension over last net salary) projected to stay above two-thirds for a private-sector non-executive employee born in 1963 and the ten generations that follow, versus that of a non-executive civil servant born in 1975, which could fall to 53%, per the French pension advisory council's June 2025 annual report
Aug 14Youth unemployment is climbing worldwide. It isn't poor countries falling behind.12.4% — the global unemployment rate among 15-24 year-olds in 2025, equal to 67 million young people out of work