According to estimates published by Insee on Friday, August 7, 119 400 jobs have been lost in the private sector during the second quarter of 2020. In the first quarter, this figure amounted to 497 500 destruction, a phenomenon linked to the containment. Regarding the acting, 108 500 jobs have been created in this sector. In the end, on a year basis, payroll employment declined by 2.5 %, is - 480 000 jobs, a level comparable to the end of June 2017.
In the merchant services (industry, construction, merchant service), which are the locomotive of employment in France, payroll employment was down 0.6 % in the second quarter, after 2.8% in the first, down 3.4% on the six months. This is the largest decline on a half-year on record since the beginning of this series of Insee, conducted from 1970. The Institute stresses that at the heart of the crisis in 2008-2009, between September 2008 and march 2009, the merchant services (industry, construction, merchant service) had dropped from 1.7 %.
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The rebound of the interim
After a fall "unprecedented" in the first quarter (40.4 per cent), temporary employment has rebounded : + 23,1 %, or 108 500 creations. The acting has started to recover as early as the month of may, before to increase "significantly" in June. "Mid-2020, it remains, however, lower by 27.1 % (or - 214 800 jobs) to its level a year earlier," says Insee. Excluding temporary work, employment continued to decline, down 1.2 % (- 227 900 jobs). In construction, payroll employment private sector (excluding temporary employment) increased by 0.3 %, after a decline of 0.4 % in the first. Industrial employment is also out of acting, decrease again, by 0.8 % (- 24 300 jobs) compared to the previous quarter, 1.1 % year on year.
