This is the whole paradox: what made the strength of the Ile-de-France economy makes it its Achilles heel in the midst of the Covid turmoil.
"Ile-de-France, due to the internationalization of its economy, is more severely affected than other French regions by the consequences of the pandemic", write the authors of the latest report from the Paris Region Institute on effects of the health crisis.
Result: economists estimate that in May, the overall loss of activity was 21% in the region compared to the same period in 2019. With the result a real shock on the labor market since INSEE calculated that the region lost 180,000 jobs in the first half of the year.
The workforce is now below its 2017 level.
Three years of growth swept away in a few months
We can say that the Covid has erased three years of job growth in a few months!
This despite the partial unemployment shock absorber widely used by Ile-de-France bosses.
Thus, on May 31, 2.7 million employees were affected by these partial unemployment measures, or more than 56% of people working in the private sector.
A single example allows us to understand to what extent the capital region suffered, and continues to suffer, a real economic tsunami, it is the collapse of tourism.
"Ile-de-France lost 14 million tourists in the first half of 2020," says the Institute's report.
Or a decrease of more than 60% over one year.
"
This is the double-blade effect: foreign customers did not come to visit the Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Versailles and the French rushed to the countryside or to the mountains.
Behind these absent tourists, there is less financial income estimated at "6.4 billion euros largely due to the absence of foreign visitors".
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The hotels thus lost 20 million overnight stays in the first half of the year, the Louvre museum saw its attendance drop by 64%, the Palace of Versailles by 77% ... This is enormous when we know that tourism in the region c he is 300,000 jobs, especially in catering and accommodation, already in agony with the closure of bars and restaurants.
20,000 jobs threatened in aeronautics
This is of course not the only sector that has been hit hard.
The automobile, with manufacturers like Renault in Flins and PSA in Poissy, will undoubtedly see accelerated restructuring with the Covid effect.
Aeronautics suddenly came to a halt with the planes grounded in Roissy and Orly.
In Ile-de-France, the sector represents 100,000 jobs, including 50,000 among manufacturers and equipment manufacturers.
“With the crisis, 20,000 jobs are threatened,” said the study.
In addition, 11,000 aeronautical maintenance jobs are directly impacted by the fall in air traffic.
The outlook for this industry has darkened sharply, as this sector flourished before the crisis with growth in employment and order books.
Experts now believe that the return to production equal to that of 2019 will not happen before 2023/2024 ”.
Culture, 5% of jobs in the region
The authors of the report from the Paris Region Institute focused on the world of culture “a key sector in Ile-de-France.
Activities linked to culture remain very concentrated in the region, particularly in connection with the historic establishment of media, heritage and publishing companies in Paris and its inner suburbs.
It is very difficult to understand precisely the impact of confinements and curfews on this sector, which has many freelancers who are often precarious and not always well identified.
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“Cinema, audiovisual, live performance, heritage, advertising, it is estimated that the cultural sector employs 300,000 workers in Ile-de-France, ie more than 5% of all jobs in the region.
The region concentrates in particular 67% of jobs in the cinema-audiovisual-multimedia field ”.
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So when the Ministry of Culture estimates that the health crisis has caused the turnover of all these companies to drop by 25%, or 22 billion euros less, we can imagine the direct impact on the Ile-de-France economy.
Despite significant aid from the State but also from the region and the city of Paris which adopted in May an aid plan of 15 million euros to support Parisian artists.