Are we less efficient at work since the health crisis?

A new study looks at the loss of productivity in France, which is greater than in other European countries.

This is a question over which economists are tearing their hair out. Why has labor productivity fallen significantly since the end of 2019? Will this phenomenon last? The Banque de France has just published an analysis.

franceinfo: First of all, what is labor productivity?

Sarah Lemoine: Labor productivity is used to measure the average efficiency per worker in producing goods and services. To calculate it, we take the wealth produced and divide it by the number of people employed. Quite simply.

However, at the end of 2019, labor productivity began to falter. It collapsed during the health crisis, before recovering, but not at all to its previous level. According to the Banque de France, labor productivity fell by 8.5% compared to what could have been expected, if we had remained on the pre-covid dynamic.

What are the causes identified?

The study cites the sharp rise in apprenticeships. Thanks to state aid, companies have massively recruited apprentices. 500,000 more, approximately, since 2019. “In statistics, apprentices are counted by INSEE as full-time workers, whereas in fact, they spend 25% of their time training and they are less experienced. They are therefore less productive in average than all employees”underlines economist Bruno Ducoudré.

Then there is the drop in unemployment. It resulted in the return to employment of less qualified people, or those who had been away from the labor market for some time. All in all, these hirings of apprentices and less qualified people weighed on labor productivity by 2.6 points. With relatively long-lasting effects. But the unemployment rate has fallen, and there are more people in employment, which is very positive, because it supports the productive capacities of the entire economy in the medium term.

Does the Banque de France identify other reasons?

There is the phenomenon of labor retention, that is to say when companies retain their employees, despite a drop in their activity or because they have difficulty recruiting. This weighs on the decline in labor productivity by 1.7% according to the Banque de France.

Afterwards, there are a lot of question marks. Factors that economists cannot explain or quantify. Among the avenues debated, absenteeism, the effect of teleworking, the cost of energy, or companies which survived thanks to aid during the health crisis, when they should have gone out of business.