Economists have not finished studying the impact of this completely unprecedented episode in our contemporary history.
INSEE thus delivered two studies on Wednesday on the eight weeks of confinement imposed between March and May 2020. Work on the economic consequences for households which underlines the great heterogeneity of the situations.
A quarter of the people questioned declared that their personal financial situation deteriorated during the period.
Unsurprisingly "
this proportion is all the higher as the standard of living of the household was initially low
», Underlines the statistics institute.
Families with children, which suffered for example from the closure of school canteens, suffered more (33% declared a deterioration of their finances) than households without children (18%).
In total, a third of those in employment went through technical or partial unemployment in May.
This concerns half of workers and a quarter of executives.
Because of these unemployment situations, but also cases of illness and leave, the number of hours worked per person fell by 34% during confinement, compared to last year.
The decrease in hours worked is more marked in accommodation and catering (- 80%), in the arts and entertainment (- 64%), in construction (-52%).
In agriculture, on the other hand, working hours were maintained.
The decline in work is of course also a function of occupations.
It affected more workers (-48% of hours worked) or artisans, traders, business leaders (-48%) than executives (-17%).
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Unemployment, a key indicator for 2022
The French Observatory of Economic Conjunctures (OFCE) published for its part, also on Wednesday, its outlook for 2020-2021, an exercise which also allowed its experts to return to the shock of confinement.
50 billion losses
For the institute, the urgency today is to support businesses.
"There are still more than 50 billion losses in the balance sheet of companies
," commented Xavier Timbeau, director of the OFCE.
If these losses are not dealt with in one way or another, it will have lasting consequences on the French economy, as companies will continue to lay off workers and invest little…
”
According to Mathieu Plane, deputy director of the forecasting department of the OFCE, "
outstanding loans guaranteed by the State and tax debts represent a quarter of their added value"
.
The OFCE therefore fears that bankruptcies will increase by 80% in the coming months.
Its economists then underline the small dimension of the mechanism of reinforcement of the equity capital of the recovery plan.
It is endowed with 3 billion euros, when a strike force of between 10 and 15 billion euros would be necessary, according to Xavier Ragot, president of the OFCE.
