Paris (AFP)

In one year, 360,000 jobs lost ... The Covid-19 has tipped France into an economic and social crisis, the damage of which will only be completely measurable when the aid which has so far made it possible to limit the damage is released.

At the start of 2020, optimism was in order.

INSEE reported an unemployment rate down to 8.1% at the end of 2019, its lowest level in eleven years.

Muriel Pénicaud, then Minister of Labor, considered "frankly attainable" Emmanuel Macron's ambition to reach 7% in 2022. And employers complained of "recruitment difficulties" ...

Patatras, the first confinement caused activity to drop to unprecedented proportions.

Companies freeze their hiring on CDI, CDD or interim.

The number of unemployed job seekers jumped 25% in the second quarter and Unédic forecasts in June 900,000 jobs destroyed in 2020, a cataclysm.

Fortunately, the damage over the year will be less: 7.5% more unemployed, compared with an increase of 18% in 2009 during the financial crisis for a recession that is however much less severe (2.9% against 8.3 %).

Vladimir Passeron, head of the employment department at INSEE, explains this difference by "the very powerful effect" of partial activity, which was almost non-existent in 2009. It concerned up to 8.4 million employees in April and has preserved " more than 1.6 million jobs ", according to the OFCE.

In addition, "governments have not hesitated to support activity, with debts which have exploded. It is not at all the same context," adds Mireille Bruyère, economist at the University of Toulouse.

Guaranteed bank loans, solidarity funds, load deferrals ... the State disbursed more than 300 billion in aid last year.

The economy was in a way "sealed off", which paradoxically resulted in a 33% drop in bankruptcies in 2020, according to the wage guarantee scheme (AGS) which intervenes in the event of bankruptcies. companies.

But beware of "this fall in trompe l'oeil" which "masks a sharp increase in the number of companies in difficulty", underlines its director Houria Aouimeur-Milano.

- Twice as many social plans -

Since March 1, 2020, 844 job protection plans (PSE) have been initiated according to the Dares, twice as many as over the same period the previous year.

Not to mention 6,000 collective dismissal procedures of less than ten employees in SMEs which often go under the media radars.

Sectors are particularly affected: aeronautics (30,000 jobs lost), tourism (TUI, Accorinvest ...), transport (Air France, ADP, Transdev ...), clothing (La Halle, Orchestra, Kidiliz ...), catering (Courtepaille, Elior, Flunch ...).

In some cases, the Covid will have been the fatal blow for companies already in difficulty, in others a pretext to restructure according to the CGT, which hopes for "a social spring" against the layoffs.

To preserve employment, the government has developed with the social partners a long-term partial activity mechanism (which can last up to two years) as well as a mechanism to allow the collective retraining of employees towards a promising sector within the company. 'an employment pool.

With his plan "a young person a solution", he gave priority to the employment of the under 26 years old, whose hires decreased by 14% in 2020, in particular through recruitment aids and the financing of career paths. insertion.

At the risk of creating, according to Michel Beaugas, in charge of employment at Force Ouvrière, "threshold effects for the elderly and a trap of long-term unemployment" which already concerns a job seeker (with or without activity) on of them.

Unions and associations are worried about the slipping into poverty of precarious workers who had small contracts in closed sectors, as evidenced by the 9% increase in RSA beneficiaries in 2020. A phenomenon that is likely to increase according to them with the reform of unemployment insurance wanted by the executive.

One of the keys for the next few months (even years) will be the gradual phasing out of support measures if the health situation improves.

The AGS then fears "an increase in bankruptcy filings".

And a reduction in the support of the partial activity could multiply the layoffs.

In mid-December, the OFCE predicted that the unemployment rate could climb to 10.6% at the end of 2021. More optimistic, Bruno Le Maire bet Monday that the economy would show "its immense capacity to rebound" as soon as the restrictions of activity and mobility will be lifted, as after the two confinements.

"Scaffolding precise forecasts is currently a bit of a challenge", concedes INSEE, as "the succession of epidemic waves conditions the resumption of the most affected sectors", ultimately dependent "on the global race" between the virus and the vaccines.

© 2021 AFP