“France has two things that differentiate it from its big European neighbours. It has an unemployment rate that has been higher for too many years. The second thing is that we work shorter hours than our neighbours”, argued the head of state interviewed Thursday, July 14 on the occasion of the National Day. Is he telling the truth?
The unemployment rate in France is indeed higher than the European average. In May, according to Eurostat, the unemployment rate in the EU was 6.1% and 6.6% in the euro zone alone, while the rate in France in May was 7.2%. But France does not have the worst unemployment rate among its neighbors. In Spain, it is over 13%, 8% in Italy and 7.7% in Sweden. In contrast, Germany posted an unemployment rate of less than 3% in May.
Be careful, however, not to over-interpret these figures. Labor flexibility is not the same from one country to another. In the Scandinavian countries, for example, there is a “flexicurity” model with companies that can lay off workers more easily, but employees who can have higher compensation. In Germany or the Netherlands, unemployment rates are certainly very low: part-time jobs are much more developed there than in France.
As for working hours in Europe, the legal retirement age is actually 65 on average, whereas it is 62 in France. The legal age is even set at 67 in Germany and Italy. But there, again, there are subtleties.
First, in some countries, age may vary by sex. In Poland, for example, the legal age for men is 65, which is higher than in France, but it is 60 for women. Moreover, if we talk a lot about the legal age, we must also look at the effective retirement age. It is true, however, that France remains, here too, one of the countries where workers leave the labor market the earliest, along with Luxembourg and Slovakia.
How can everyone be better informed?
Participate in the consultation initiated as part of the European project De facto on the Make.org platform. Franceinfo is the partner