Une comparaison France-Europe des taux de chômage. Structure de la population active et distribution des taux de chômage catégoriels

Abstract

France is one of the most dramatically concerned with high unemployment amongst European countries. This is true regardless of whether one looks at aggregate unemployment rates, at shares of unemployed workers in the total labor force, or at uderemployment rates (that take account of involuntary part-time employment). That poor performance cannot be explained in terms of mismatch. The structure of the French labor supply, in terms of either education level, age or gender, lies in a mean position vis-à-vis the rest of Europe (even though it seems to differ a bit more from those of Northern European countries). Neither can the French handicap be explained by a pecular feature of the demand for labor. Mismatch unemployment accounts for only a small fraction of the gap between the French and European unemployment rates. In fact, mismatch looks more like a European than like a national problem. Higher unemployment in France hits all categories of labor in a quite uniform way.