The medium term job-creating sectors (Policy Brief 258 - January 2012)
The initial decline of activity in 2008 was primarily interpreted as a foreign demand aggregate shock to the industrial sectors in France and was transmitted through inter-industry trade with the rest of the economy, but the rebound seen in the different sectors did not happen automatically and highlighted divergent trajectories.
- The medium term job-creating sectors
The crisis does not seem to have had a troubling effect on the overall trends during the 2000s: it did not accelerate the downward trend in industrial employment or launch the dynamics of demand, comparative advantage and innovation capacities, which in the medium term are all factors differentiating the various potentials for job-creating sectors.
This study is an extension of a policy brief from last year and updates the sectorial employment projections. The observed total jobs created in the market sector at the end of 2010 and during 2011 were higher than projected last year, even though growth has not been stronger than expected. This employment dynamic is reflected in a marked downward decrease of labour productivity. However, the hierarchy of industry sectors with regard to employment was maintained compared to the previous projections. In total, 783,000 jobs will be created in the market sector from 2011 to 2016.
The renewal of new business sectors due to a process of creative destruction in the short-run is experiencing several obstacles, which can have lasting effects on the sectors’ trajectories: credit constraints limiting innovative start-ups from emerging, a shortage of certain skills and specific human capital characters that add to the increasing lack of competence. If the moderate adjustments of employment reflect a desire to preserve the core business at the aggregate level, then the recovery phase of the market-share distribution, which was initiated in 2009 thanks to a rebound in foreign trade, should involve significant job reallocation: the sectors whose employment is predicted to decline in the period 2011-2016 will lose 161,000 jobs. By contrast, job-creating sectors such as business services, personal and social utility services, as well as intermediary services, will total 944,000 new jobs. The magnitude of the medium term job reallocation reflects a movement of structural transformation of French productivity, regardless of the outlook for aggregate employment in the short run.
Contents:
- Sectors in the crisis
- Medium term sectorial developments in employment
- Authors: Maxime Liegey, Department of Economic and Financial Affairs and Cecile Jolly, Department of Labour - Employment
Press Contact:
Jean-Michel Roullé, Head of Communications
Tel. +33 (0)1 42 75 61 37 - jean-michel.roulle@strategie.gouv.fr