“It’s not a coincidence of the calendar”: why is France facing a wave of social plans?

Nearly 2,400 jobs affected at Auchan, 1,254 at Michelin, 947 at Société Générale, 502 at Nexity… Since the start of 2024, several French giants have announced job cuts one after the other. Bad news on the employment front and for thousands of employees who risk finding themselves unemployed. No sector seems spared, from mass distribution to automobiles and real estate. INSEE recorded 25,000 net job losses in the third quarter of 2024 and the trend should be confirmed in 2025.

There are fewer and fewer apprentices

These repeated social plans are not “not a coincidence of the calendar”assures TF1info Mathieu Plane, economist at the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (new window) (OFCE – Sciences-Po). If large companies are not the only ones affected, they reveal the “ongoing turnaround in the labor market. This is the counterpart of several abnormally positive years”he explains.

For him, two reasons explain this situation. “First of all, the employment policy implemented over the last three years has enabled a very significant increase in apprenticeships.” The number of young people following work-study training increased from 300,000 in 2018 to one million in 2022, driven by massive state aid. Problem: in the finance bill (new window) for 2025, the government plans 1.2 billion euros in savings on these hiring bonuses. “The employment pool that apprenticeship provided will therefore disappear”summarizes the specialist, for whom this catch-up was expected.

Since 2020, we have put the French economy under wraps

Mathieu Plane, economist

Second reason for this wave of layoffs: the end of “whatever it takes” established by Emmanuel Macron at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Companies benefited from extremely strong support during the crisis, as if the French economy had been put under a bell. Until 2022, there were therefore very few bankruptcies. Now, when we raise the bell, there is a sharp rise in job destruction”analyzes Mathieu Plane. With the disappearance of the aid plan deployed from March 2020, companies in difficulty have no other choice but to reduce their workforce.

The political situation also has nothing to do with this multiplication of social plans. The dissolution of the National Assembly then the political recomposition in the heart of summer “amplified reactions on the labor market and accelerated job reduction policies”. Without the Paris Olympic Games succeeding in reversing the movement.

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The OFCE forecasts 143,000 job losses in 2025 and an increase in unemployment to 8%, compared to 7.3% currently, if the government manages to implement its budgetary savings program. “We are moving from a budgetary policy supporting growth to a recovery of accounts. It is the end of an economic cycle”concludes Mathieu Plane.