France's private payroll employment dropped by 2.3% in Q1

According to the report from Insee, at the end of the first quarter of 2020, private sector wage employment dropped by 2.3%, or 453,800 net job losses in one quarter. Compared to the end of the first quarter 2019, employment is down 1.4%, that is -274,900 jobs. It returned to its lowest level since the third quarter of 2017.

In the so-called "non-agricultural market" field (industry, construction and market services), payroll employment has been measured in quarterly time series since the end of 1970. In the first quarter of 2020, it fell by 2.6% in this field (-442,200 jobs): this is the largest drop recorded in the series. In particular, it is significantly sharper than the troughs observed in the fourth quarter of 2008 (-0.8%) and the first quarter of 2009 (-0.9%).

The number of temporary workers fell by an unprecedented 37.0% in the quarter, that is -291,800 jobs. Excluding temporary workers, payroll employment fell by 0.9% (-162,000 jobs).

Private payroll employment (excluding temporary workers) in the construction sector has held up well after twelve consecutive quarters of growth: +0.4% compared with +0.7% in the previous quarter (i.e. +5,700 jobs after +10,100). Over one year, it has risen by 33,600.