Employment: Unemployment falls but poverty increases

"I tell you in all sincerity, wake up. As I speak, we are at 7% unemployment." In November 2023, Emmanuel Macron, in a speech, revived his refrain of full employment, his goal of achieving 5% unemployment by 2027, whatever the cost.

Far from the myth the president has constructed about the benefits of this ambition, the facts are stubborn and dire for the most vulnerable. According to a study by the National Council for Policies to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion (CNLE) published on May 7, the decline in the unemployment rate has hardly signaled a decline in poverty. On the contrary, poverty and the sense of poverty fueled by the French have continued to grow.

Indeed, according to the institution's slideshow, while unemployment fell by 3 points between 2015 and 2022, from 10.3% to 7.3%, the monetary poverty rate increased. The number of people living on less than 60% of the median standard of living rose from 14.2% to 14.4%.

The proportion of people having to give up at least five daily expenses out of a list of thirteen (for example, being able to access the internet, being able to engage in regular leisure activities, heating their homes, or being able to buy new clothes) increased from 12.1% to 13.1%. The feeling of poverty, meanwhile, soared by more than 6 points, rising from 12.4% to 18.7% among the population over the same period.

According to the CNLE, one of the reasons lies in the nature of the jobs created between 2015 and 2022. While unemployment has indeed fallen, the jobs created have not all been of the same quality.

"Many jobs created have not led to an escape from poverty, whether for workers employed under temporary and part-time contracts or for those with micro-entrepreneur status, who have remained financially poor in employment, or for apprentices in higher education, who were often already living above the poverty line before being employed," note the authors of the study. In short, the objective of reducing the number of unemployed has been achieved through the widespread use of precarious, part-time and poorly paid jobs .

It is precisely among these precarious employees that the economic and material difficulties are most glaring . "Material and social deprivation has spread considerably among employees hired on short-term contracts, reaching comparatively high rates (15.5% in 2015, 18.3% in 2019 and 2021), temporary workers (from 14.1% to 23%) and the unemployed (from 34% to 37%)," the report details.

While the increase in hardship affects those in poor-quality employment, those who are inactive are also struggling. For example, the poverty rate has increased among retirees, as the average pension, in constant euros, decreased from 2015 to 2022. The poverty rate for people unable to work due to disability has also jumped. It rose from 26.8% in 2015 to 36.7% in 2022.

This CNLE publication thus sheds harsh light on Emmanuel Macron's unemployment reduction policy. The main consequence of the latest unemployment insurance reforms has been to throw unemployed people into precarious situations.

The reform that came into force in 2021 , for example, aimed to reduce the amount of the allowance, by modifying the method of calculating the reference salary, on which the compensation is based, penalizing people whose careers have been the most discontinuous.

That same year, the number of hours worked required to qualify for unemployment benefits was increased, and the duration of benefits was reduced. In addition to exacerbating poverty among employees and the inactive, the public policies implemented by Emmanuel Macron's governments—the most recent being the reform of the RSA (Responsible Social Security) making the granting of the minimum benefit conditional on working hours —are fueling a number of tensions.

According to the CNLE, this is due to "problems of information and access to user rights, expressed needs that are not met and phenomena of competition between users" .

These disagreements sometimes even lead to tragedy. On January 28, 2021, a France Travail (formerly Pôle emploi) counselor was even killed by a user in Valence (Drôme). The increase in appointments generated by unemployment insurance reforms, coupled with understaffing in the administration, had been singled out by the unions.