Unemployment : how to explain the decline in the first quarter?

If the containment weighs heavily on the economic activity, this has not been felt in the figures for the first quarter of 2020, according to the Insee.

The unemployment rate in France has decreased by 0.3 percentage points in the first quarter to 7.8%, a drop in trompe-l'oeil" due to the containment of the second half of march, explained this Thursday, the Insee "this does not reflect an improvement in the labour market".

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"This decline in the rate of unemployment is the result of a strong decline in the number of unemployed persons declaring themselves available or in active search of employment during the period of confinement. The confinement period has strongly affected the behaviors of active research of employment (for those unemployed in the sector of activity of choice is to stop for example), as well as the availability of people (stress of child care, for example)," said Insee in its press release.

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In reality no"improvement in the labour market"

In fact, an unemployed person within the meaning of the international labour Office (ILO) is a person aged 15 years or older who meets the following three criteria : without a job during the reference week ; is available to work within two weeks ; has done over the last four weeks actively looking for employment or found a job that starts in three months.

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unemployment in France

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"In total, the unemployment in the ILO sense, therefore, is lower during this period of confinement, this does not translate in an improvement in the labour market", explains the institute. "On the basis of the comments on the first 11 weeks of the quarter, it is estimated at 0.4 point effect and confinement on the average unemployment rate in the first quarter. In other words, the rate of unemployment that would have been observed in the first quarter in the absence of containment would have been almost stable at 8.2%," says the institute.