Keystone-SDA
Bad signal for the French labor market: the number of hiring declarations of more than one month (excluding temporary work) started to decline again in the fourth quarter of 2024 (-2.4%) compared to the previous quarter, indicated Urssaf on Wednesday.
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January 22, 2025 – 12:27
(Keystone-ATS) The number of hiring declarations remained stable in the previous quarter (+0%), recalls the public establishment in a press release.
Year-on-year, the number of declarations decreased by 5% in the fourth quarter. But with just under 2.3 million declarations, their level remains 5.7% higher than that of the last quarter of 2019, before the Covid crisis, adds Urssaf.
The decline in the fourth quarter results from the drop in permanent hires (-3.3%) and to a lesser extent fixed-term contracts of more than one month (-1.5%).
-Companies with 20 or more employees showed a more pronounced decline (-2.8%) than that of companies with fewer than 20 employees (-1.9%).
By sector, hiring declarations were in a “sharp decline” in industry in the fourth quarter (-4.2%), while they remained in the green in the previous quarter (+0.8%).
They are falling again in construction (-2.6%) and in the tertiary sector (-2.1%) after an almost stable third quarter (respectively -0.1% and +0.2%), details the Urssaf.
The level remains “significantly higher” than that pre-crisis in industry and the tertiary sector (respectively +5.4% and +7.4% compared to the last quarter of 2019), but is on the other hand “clearly in below” in construction (-11.8%).
Against a backdrop of the proliferation of social plans, the main economic organizations expect an increase in unemployment. In its latest economic report in mid-December, INSEE estimated that the unemployment rate (measured according to the ILO and allowing international comparisons) should increase from 7.4% currently to 7.6% of the active population in by mid-2025. Fourth quarter figures are due on February 11.
Swiss
