January 23, 2018
The 750 is a rough guess, but the NYT touted Macron’s commitment to “invest more than €15 million” in retraining programs. If we assume that a program cost 20,000 euros per worker (about $24,000), then 15 million euros should be enough to retrain somewhere around 750 workers. Since France’s labor force is almost 30 million, it may not be surprising that the French unions are not overly impressed with this commitment.
The piece presents France’s economy as lacking dynamism. This is not consistent with most data comparing France to other countries. According to the Conference Board, France’s GDP per hour of work was near the top in Europe in 2012 (the last year for which this series is available), slightly above Germany.
The piece notes that France’s unemployment rate has been “persistently stuck at more than 9 percent for nearly a decade.” However, its employment rate for prime-age (ages 25 to 54) workers is 80.2 percent, 1.7 percentage points higher than in the United States.
It also includes a reference to France’s rough unemployment rate “of more than 25 percent.” This is misleading since, unlike in the United States, most French young people are not in the labor force. Since college is nearly free and students get stipends to cover their cost of living, most colleges students don’t work. The percent of the youth population in France that is unemployed is close to 9.0 percent, not much higher than in the United States.
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