For the LFI deputy, “there are not 2.2 million unemployed, as the government boasts”. He cites for this a report by the High Commissioner for Employment, whose calculation method is criticized by specialists.
“There are not 2.2 million unemployed, as the government boasts. But ‘5.1 million people in need of a job'”. On Twitter, the deputy of La France insoumise François Ruffin questioned, Tuesday, May 9, the communication of the executive, which regularly rejoices in its good results on the front of the fight against unemployment.
In support of this statement, the deputy mentions a report (PDF) of the High Commissioner for Employment, Thibaut Guilluy, presented on April 18 to the Minister of Labor and which draws the outlines of France travail, the announced successor of Pôle emploi. Is the parliamentarian right to dispute the figure of the executive?
According to INSEE figures, there were indeed 2.2 million unemployed people in France in the 4th quarter of 2022, or 7.2% of the active population in France (excluding Mayotte). This is the lowest unemployment rate for 14 years (and not for 40 years as claimed by the Renaissance party in February). Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne welcomed this: “We continue to pursue our goal of full employment.”she assured in her tweet.
But the INSEE figures, collected through the Continuous Employment Survey, are not the only official statistics for measuring unemployment. Those given by Pôle emploi stem from a different methodology. They report 3 million category A unemployed people and 6.1 million job seekers in all categories (A, B, C, D, E), excluding Mayotte, in the first quarter of 2023.
Different calculation methods
INSEE uses the criteria of the International Labor Office (ILO) to define an unemployed person, ie a person combining these three situations: unemployed, available for work and active in their research. For its part, Pôle emploi counts the number of job seekers registered in its administrative file, divided into 5 categories. Category A is the one that comes closest to the concept of unemployed within the meaning of the ILO, since it concerns people who are unemployed and in active search. In the other categories, we find people in reduced activity, in training or sick, among others.
There is also a debate around the notion of unemployed as defined by the ILO, whose criteria are too strict. Some plead for a broader definition, such as Agnès Verdier-Molinié, director of the Foundation for Research on Administration and Public Policy (iFrap), a liberal think tank. “If we really want to have an idea of the number of unemployed people in a country to compare the most comparable figures possible, we should add a minimum unemployment and a halo of minimum unemployment”, she pleads. People located in the halo around unemployment (about 2 million people, according to INSEE) find themselves on the borderline of unemployment, in a situation close to that of the ILO criteria, without however entering the radar: actively seeking but unavailable, available but without searching…
How the High Commissioner for Employment quoted by François Ruffin came, for his part, to “5.1 million people in need of a job” ? The figure, which appears on page 70 of the report devoted to France travail, is an even different statistic, obtained via an unprecedented calculation method. Joined by franceinfo, the Ministry of Labor points out that it is used by the author of the report to estimate the number of people “intended to be accompanied by the France travail network”.
“They tripped over the carpet between the numbers”
For this, the report team counted “people of working age who are not in employment”. Using the Insee Continuous Employment Survey, they identified not only people actively looking for a job (as defined by the ILO), but also those in the unemployment halo, those who spontaneously declared themselves as unemployed in the survey, those registered with Pôle Emploi without activity, as well as beneficiaries of the active solidarity income (RSA). The latter are included because they will have to register with Pôle Emploi, according to the reform project announced in the spring by the Ministry of Labour.
For iFrap, the figure of 5.1 million contained in the report is a “true revelation”writes the foundation on its website. “There is no obligation to take an active employment approach in France when you receive social minima, this means that many people are not counted in the unemployment rate within the meaning of the ILO”, critic Agnès Verdier-Molinié. According to her, this figure shows that “the situation on the labor market is much more serious than the unemployment rate suggests”.
However, several economists question the relevance of the calculation. “They tripped over the carpet between the Pôle Emploi figures and the unemployed figures [au sens du BIT]. Either you take Pôle emploi categories, or you take the Insee-BIT category”, slice Bertrand Martinot, economist at the Institut Montaigne and former social adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy.
“They added cabbage and carrots!”
Bertrand Martinot, economist at the Institut Montaigneat franceinfo
“What strikes me is the need to invent a concept”, is surprised Bruno Coquet, doctor in economics and expert associated with the French Observatory of economic conditions. “Unemployment is one of the best documented things in the job market,” he says, recommending using “concepts that already exist”.
Unemployment figures, an old debate
By emphasizing the gap between two statistics, François Ruffin above all revived the debate on the indicators to measure the need for employment. “It’s a great classic. Since the ANPE exists [l’ancêtre de Pôle emploi, créé en 1967]there are different numbers (…) Depending on whether one is superior to the other, there is a political use, we choose the one that suits us”explains Bertrand Martinot.
Would one indicator be better than the other? “None of these figures is wrong. They reflect different realities depending on the questions we ask ourselves”answers Thomas Coutrot, head of the working conditions and health department at Dares (direction which depends on the Ministry of Labor), also supporting Nupes during the legislative elections in 2022.
In the end, François Ruffin could even have given a higher figure, laughs Bruno Coquet, in reference to the 6.1 million registered at Pôle emploi. According to Bertrand Martinot, adding to the number of unemployed, Insee version, the halo around unemployment, people in a situation of underemployment and the working poor, “we would arrive at seven, eight million people who are suffering”.