While unemployment is on the rise again, the government will be expected in 2025 to determine its ability to reverse this trend.
Unemployment rose again in November. We cannot yet speak of hemorrhage, of a return to mass unemployment, but it is true that for several months, slowly, the unemployment curve has tended to reverse itself.
The number of job seekers registered with France Travail increased by 1.43% in November compared to the previous month, with 44,400 more registered over one month, compared to 5,200 over the entire third quarter. A figure amplified by statistical changes, but still, in broader categories, we are at +0.4% over one month, compared to +0.2 over the third quarter.
Will this continue? It is probable, and everything indicates it, in particular the multiplication of social plans, more than 200 in progress according to the CGT, against 132 in May. Business failures are increasing rapidly. Nearly 66,000 over the year, 25% more than a year ago. The explanation: the economic situation, fewer orders, tighter cash flow, higher interest rates, assistance to repay.
There are also tax and regulatory uncertainties and the absence of a budget, which encourage companies to postpone their recruitment projects.
Business Cyprus: Unemployment, the biggest challenge of 2025? – 27/12
No control over private groups for the government
Result visible at France Travail, with an increase in registrations for dismissal and a drop in exits for resumption of employment. For the moment, this reduction in hiring is not really visible in the unemployment figures because the number of people entering the labor market is also less dynamic. But in 2025, the French economy would destroy 150,000 jobs according to the OFCE, a first since 2012. According to INSEE, the unemployment rate was at 7.6% in June, compared to 7.1% at the start of 2023.
What can the government do? It will be tested on its ability to prevent these layoffs. Michel Barnier had indeed mentioned the control of the public money which was given to them, but without much conviction. And the government has no control over completely private groups. It was already following layoffs at Michelin that Lionel Jospin released his famous in 1999: “The State cannot do everything”.
Second front: that of its austere economic policy. We will have to convince that it can reduce deficits without impacting growth.
