France private payroll employment decreased by 0.6% in Q2 2020

According to the report from Insee, between the end of March and the end of June 2020, private payroll employment declined by 0.6%, or 119,400 net job losses after already -497,500 in the previous quarter. Over a year, employment fell by 2.5% that is -480,800 jobs. It returns to a level comparable to that of the end of June 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 second quarter of 2020, it fell by 0.6% in this field after -2.8% in the previous quarter, that is -3.4% over the semester. This is the largest half-year decline since the series began. By way of comparison, in the middle of the economic crisis of 2008/2009, “non-agricultural market” payroll employment had fallen by 1.7% between September 2008 and March 2009.

After an unprecedented drop in the first quarter of 2020 (-40.4%), temporary work rebounded in the second quarter: +23.1% or +108,500 jobs. Excluding temporary workers, on the contrary, private payroll employment continues to decline. It dropped by 1.2% (-227,900 jobs) after -0.9% in the first quarter. As a reminder, in this publication, temporary workers are accounted for in the temporary employment sector within market services, whichever sector they carry out their assignment (industry, construction, market or non-market services). In each of these sectors, therefore, a large part of the short-term adjustment to the crisis has went through the drop in recourse to temporary work.