Daily News

View All News

France – Temporary staffing growth accelerates

30 March 2015

The growth reported in the French temporary employment market during January 2015 continued into February, according to the latest figures from Prism’Emploi, the French Association of Employment Agencies.

Temporary employment increased by 3.7% in February 2015, compared with the same month last year. This follows growth of 1.2% in January during the same period.

While positive, the temporary employment market still has a long way to go to recover from a particularly difficult year last year. There was a decline in temporary employment of 4.1% in December 2014, the sharpest year-on-year drop in a single month during 2014. May and June were the only months last year to report an increase in temporary employment compared with the same month the previous year.

The Construction sector is demonstrating very weak demand in 2015 and was the only sector to report a decrease in temporary employment in February, decreasing 18.7% compared with last year – a similar rate of decline to that seen in January.

The Industrial sector reported growth of 7.6%, while Transportation & Logistics expanded by 7.6%, and the Services sector was up by 6.9%. The Retail sector rebounded with growth of 5.3%, following no change in temporary employment levels last month.

There were 16.8% more unskilled blue-collar workers in February 2015, compared with the same month last year. The number of managers and executives rose by 9.7%, while white-collar workers numbers were up by 8.2%.

This growth was partially offset by the number of skilled blue-collar workers, which decreased by 13.7%.

Of the 21 French regions, 16 reported an increase in temporary worker numbers during February. The strongest growth was reported in Lorraine (+16.7%), Upper (Haute) Normandy (12.4%), and Nord Pas De Calais (12%).

The sharpest declines were reported in Champagne-Ardenne (5.3%), Poitou-Charentes (3.6%), and Midi-Pyrenees (1%).

Umanis, an independent third party, prepare the Prism’Emploi Barometer. It is based on statistics reported by a panel of temporary employment agencies representing more than 80% of temporary employment in France.