New record for “Choose France”, Emmanuel Macron’s annual meeting with foreign investors. 15 billion euros were announced this Monday by Microsoft, McCain, Amazon, FertigHy, Skeleton – Estonian battery factory – and other companies trying to see if the grass is not greener here. Enough to ensure, according to Laurent Saint-Martin, general director of Business France, a public structure responsible for French economic promotion, the creation or sustainability of 10,000 jobs in France. Or 1.5 million euros for a job.
Certainly, the days when the construction of a single factory employed thousands of people belong to the past. A Business France study dating from 2022 thus showed that only 3% of foreign investment projects exceeded 250 employees in France. And two-thirds of projects had 20 or fewer.
A very low number of jobs per billion
The latest EY barometer released at the beginning of May, which crowned France as European champion of attractiveness in terms of foreign investment, shows at the same time a drop in terms of allocated positions: 35 jobs are created on average per project investment in France, compared to for example 49 in Germany or 61 in the United Kingdom. And down to 299 in Spain. How to explain it? In addition to our legendary labor costs, “France is a country of service professions and suffers from a lack of qualified labor for industrial projects,” points out Sylvain Bersinger, economist at the Asteres firm.
Due to this high cost and this lack of manpower, France is therefore rather of interest to investors for cutting-edge technology. The worst factories in terms of jobs. “They are extremely automated and require only a very small number of extremely qualified employees,” continues the economist.
Is France really attractive for employment?
This observation is also repeated at each Choose France summit. (this Monday marks the 7th edition). Thus, in 2023, the Portuguese charging station operator Power Dot had promised to invest 140 million euros for… 66 jobs. Another textbook case with Knauf, a German construction materials group, which injected 100 million for 50 workers. In total, foreign investments accounted for 39,773 jobs in 2023, according to the same EY barometer. That is less than in the United Kingdom and Spain. And if we are nitpicky and relate the number of jobs created to the total population, France is only in eighth European position, behind Portugal, Serbia, Ireland, Hungary, Spain, the United Kingdom and Greece.
“It would also be interesting to look at the net balance of jobs” (the jobs created from which we subtract the jobs destroyed), adds Bruno Coquet, doctor in economics and president of Uno Etudes & Conseil, a consulting and expertise firm on employment and public policies. This time let’s look at the German group Continental. In 2023, this tire expert announces that it will invest 500 jobs in France, particularly at its site in Rambouillet. The same site where it had cut 400 jobs in 2009. Beyond this type of company with random policies, “Sanofi and other large groups have massively outsourced jobs. We can therefore call into question this observation of attractiveness. » France also invests more abroad (45 billion) than the reverse (34 billion). “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, except in terms of employment,” jokes Bruno Coquet.
Too little investment to really weigh
As a result of all these factors, foreign investments account for only 0.13% of employment in France, says EY. A drop in the ocean, but how could it be otherwise? “In France, the gross fixed capital formation of companies – their investment in the country – is estimated at 400 billion euros,” explains the professor. Bragging about having 15 billion from abroad is good, but that’s not what will fundamentally change things. »
We cannot solve all the problems at once, says Sylvain Bersinger. “What Choose France is trying to do is not to resolve the unemployment problem, but to reverse France’s trade deficit a little. By building cutting-edge products at home, not only do we gain geopolitical independence, particularly from countries like China, but we also and above all simply have less to buy abroad. » And that’s already not bad.