Tribune. On February 15, 2019, Edouard Philippe opened in one sentence the fundamental economic debate of recent years: "I do not believe that we can sustainably live in a very competitive world with 3 million unemployed on one side and companies that are unable to recruit" the other. To put it another way: is France suffering from a supply or demand problem? Are the French structural rigidities that embody the supply the main cause of our unemployment rate – as the Prime Minister suggests here – or is it rather the result of too weak demand, the responsibility of which would then fail macroeconomic policy for which the European Central Bank is the justice of the peace?
Edouard Philippe continues: "This is a real French scandal in a way, a specificity that we would do well and we have to solve it".
However, there is no French exception relating to the issue of difficulties in recruiting companies. The case of the United States is exemplary in this regard.
The addiction to video games at issue
While the unemployment rate in the United States had reached its peak at the turning point in 2009 and 2010, the Wall street journal published, on August 8, 2010, an article entitled "Some companies find it difficult to hire despite a high unemployment rate". The causes of this anomaly are beginning to be formulated: skills mismatch, excessive generosity of allowances, low mobility of employees, among others.
In recent months, almost 75% of new entrants to the US labor market have not been included in unemployment statistics. Recruitment difficulties were not a brake, but a symptom of the improvement in the situation
This speech will continue over the years, despite the decline in the number of unemployed Americans. The unemployment rate fell from 10% in October 2009 to below 8% in 2013, driven by policies led by the United States Federal Reserve. The debate then focuses on the dark predictions of economist Robert Gordon. According to his research from 2013, and as a result of changes in "supply", the minimum unemployment rate – full employment – has evolved negatively; rising from 4.8% in 1997 to 6.5%. Other economists estimate this floor at 7%.
