The craze for interior decoration, boosted by confinements, has not benefited the French furniture industry. It has lost a quarter of its workforce in 15 years.
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After the “fast fashion”here is “fast deco”. In a report published Tuesday May 14 and which franceinfo was able to consult, the Zero Waste France association reveals that there was twice as much furniture waste between 2014 and 2020 and ever more purchases.
Sales exploded between 2017 and 2022, boosted by confinements: in fact, the number of furniture and decorative objects placed on the market almost doubled. From 270 million units, we went to more than 500 million, or 17 items per household per year, according to this report.
A tree cut every two seconds, according to estimates
The French wanted to redo their kitchen, buy garden furniture, decorate their interior with lots of candles, cushions, trinkets with a sometimes short useful life. Even for wooden furniture, which used to be the purchase of a lifetime, today it is renewed every 15 or 20 years. To do this, it is estimated that the Swedish Ikea cuts a tree every 2 seconds.
For its part, Maisons du monde offers 3,000 new references per year. The giants of “fast fashion”, Zara and H&M have expanded their decorative offerings, currently competing with the Chinese sites Temu and Shein. However, the French furniture industry is not benefiting from this enthusiasm: in 15 years, it has lost a quarter of its jobs.
