Unemployment in France Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Unemployment in France - Essay Example Unemployment in France Unemployment has taken the centre stage in past political campaigns, with leaders making promises on lowering the unemployment rate. It was evident with former president Nicolas Sarkozy before his election in 2007, and was atop agenda in the 2012 May elections between him and the current president, Francois Holland. As the second largest economy in the Eurozone, France’s trend in unemployment seemed to have staggered in the last one decade, but is highly escalating, especially since the end of 2011. France was among the nations’ worst hit by the global recession in 2008, which left its economy struggling. The nation sunk deep into crisis and had to be bailed out by the international monetary fund (IMF), to try position the economy into balance. France contributes a great share of unemployment in the entire EU economy. As of May, France marked the 24th month of growing unemployment, with 5.1 million people unemployed, as the president struggled to revive the economy that was already in a recession in the first quarter of the year 2013. Unemployment figures for 2012 and 2013 indicate more than 10 % growth, which has begun to cause tension among the citizens. Occurring in France, it is clear that unemployment is a problem affecting even the nations with considerable industrial activity. The youths are the majority, and besides having an impact on the economy, joblessness continues to be a personal and social problem. In the past 3 years, some quarters recorded zero growth rate of unemployment, and though the awaited hope after the elections, numerous companies have announced a substantial number of layoffs, which is actually an indication of a worsening situation in the labour industry. (BBC, 2012). (France Unemployment, n.d.) Many blame the former government, but much has to be done in the current leadership to reverse the situation, and at least keep the rate below a figure of 3 million. This paper focuses on the issue of unemployment in France, with a bias on the youth and the government strategies in place to counter the problem. Unemployment has merged with other economical problems to influence the performance of the general economy , causing quandary within households, social settings, organizations, and the authority in one way or the other. France is no different and has various socio-economic structures that cause unemployment; hence, the demand and supply of labour in its economic organization would guide in understanding the insufficiency and scarcity of jobs in the labour market. Youth unemployment has been the highest in France, as more skilled personnel have increased in the labour market. This adds to the frictional unemployment that the government has been juggling with, in the economy. 2.0 Discussion on the Economic Problem/Issue Causes of France’s High Rate of Unemployment Inflexible labour markets: It is not surprising that a powerful and industrialized country, such as France has always had a higher average unemployment rate than most of its competitors. France, though small in population, has been recording an increasing and constantly higher rate of unemployment than the US economy. Fran ce has had quite a rigid labour market, which has its benefits and shortfalls with the changes in the internal and global economy. It is one of the European countries termed to be inflexible in its labour market policies and institutions that hinder its economic efficiency, full productivity, and competition. During the last global recession, the risks and benefits of labour market rigidity and flexibility came out clearly. France’s rate of unemployment rose by 1.5 percent, compared to the US 5 percent over the course of the