Like a shadow of a doubt. A week after the presidential commitment to reform work “as of this summer”, the OFCE questioned Thursday in a study the objective of full employment by 2027 and the government’s deficit forecasts.
The French Observatory of Economic Conditions thus anticipates an increase in the unemployment rate to 8% in 2023 and 2024, before a slight decline at the end of the five-year period to reach 7.5% in 2027 (i.e. 0.2 points above its actual level).
A “complex” job center reform
The OFCE study, which tries to outline the budgetary and macroeconomic framework for the next five years, therefore puts forward more pessimistic figures than those of the government, wishing to bring the unemployment rate back to around 5%, the level generally adopted. in France to define full employment. “Productivity and working hours have not returned to their pre-crisis level,” notes Eric Heyer, director of the Analysis and Forecasting Department of the OFCE.
But “necessarily, at some point, there will be a catch-up in productivity” and a “trade-off” to be made between this variable and employment, warns his deputy Mathieu Plane. Among the main reforms announced on the employment front, the replacement of Pôle emploi by France Travail, via the merger of several existing operators, is “complex to carry out”, underline the authors.
Such an “institutional” reform is not “directly job-creating”, observes the OFCE, which does not comment on the impact of the future reform of unemployment insurance on employment. “In total, 750,000 jobs were created in France between the end of 2019 and the end of 2021, including nearly 400,000 apprenticeship jobs”, note the authors.
A deficit of 3.7% in 2027?
But this success was facilitated by costly state aid to companies to convince them to hire apprentices. Given the budgetary constraints linked to the high level of debt and public deficit, “the contribution of apprenticeship to full employment should logically reach a ceiling and probably become negative”, anticipates the OFCE. In terms of public finances, economic analysts expect the deficit to reach 5.5% at the end of 2022, against 5% expected by the executive.
In 2027, it should stand at 3.7% (0.7 points above the government target, “mainly due to the reduction in budgetary support for the economy”, offered by the government to cushion the shock of the pandemic and the energy crisis.