Paris (AFP)

Fragile sign of resumption of activity? Despite the destruction of nearly 120,000 jobs in the second quarter in the private sector, the interim rebounded but remained at a level significantly lower than before the coronavirus crisis and economists are pessimistic.

After an "unprecedented" fall in the first quarter (-40.4%), the interim rebounded between April and June: + 23.1%, or 108,500 creations. "As in all crises, the interim reacts faster and stronger than the rest of the job," said Sylvain Larrieu, of INSEE.

This rebound in the second quarter "is a sign of an upturn in activity, but we are still far below the normal situation, since the interim is 27% lower than its level of a year ago", ie 214,800 fewer jobs, he analyzes with AFP.

Eric Heyer, researcher at the French Observatory of Economic Conjunctures (OFCE), is cautious, noting that the interim is no longer an indicator of recovery "for a little while" because companies also very often resort to short fixed-term contracts one, two or three days, rather than on an interim basis.

The rise of the interim "reflects more an adjustment to respond quickly to an increase in demand, than to strong pressure resulting from an activity above the trend", also tempers Philippe Waechter, economist at Ostrum Asset Management .

More generally, the second quarter saw the destruction of 119,400 jobs in the private sector, down 0.6% compared to the previous quarter, and 2.5% over one year. At the first, 497,500 jobs had been destroyed under the effect of confinement. This slight improvement is explained in large part by the temporary work, but also by the massive recourse of companies to partial unemployment.

- 'Absorbed by partial unemployment' -

According to an estimate from the Ministry of Labor, 7.2 million French people were on short-time work one or more days a week in March, 8.8 million in April, 7.9 million in May and 4.5 in June.

"Partial unemployment is not a loss of employment. Therefore, the adjustment on the labor market was not made on the reduction of employment but by the transition to partial unemployment", notes Philippe Waechter .

"We should have had a lot more job losses, but this was absorbed by short-time working," says Mr. Heyer, who fears, like Mr. Waechter, "significant job cuts" to come.

Mr Heyer notes a "lag" between the 0.6% drop in salaried employment in the second quarter and the 13.8% plunge in gross domestic product (GDP) over the same period, the largest drop since 1949 : "We should have had jobs of the same order, which means that the job crisis has not yet arrived".

In the market sector (industry, construction, commercial services), which is the locomotive of employment in France, salaried employment fell by 0.6% in the second quarter, after -2.8% in the first, i.e. - 3.4% over the semester. This is the largest drop over a half-year recorded since the start of this series from INSEE, carried out from 1970.

The Institute underlines that at the heart of the 2008/2009 crisis, between September 2008 and March 2009, the commercial sector had fallen by only 1.7%.

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