After four quarters of stagnation, the unemployment rate fell sharply in France in the fourth quarter of 2021. It fell by 0.6 points, to 7.4% of the working population (excluding Mayotte), according to figures published this Friday by INSEE.
In total, 189,000 people have come out of unemployment.
The number of unemployed - as defined by the International Labor Office (ILO) - thus amounted to 2.2 million people at the end of 2021.
It is now 0.8 points below its pre-pandemic level (end of 2019), “
and at its lowest level since 2008, if we exclude the one-off drop in “trompe-l’œil” in the spring of 2020, linked to the health crisis
”, notes the national institute of statistics.
Over the previous four quarters, unemployment had remained almost stable, between 8.1% and 8%.
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The sharp drop in unemployment observed at the end of 2021 is more significant than the decrease predicted by INSEE.
In its latest economic report, in December, the institute forecast an unemployment rate of 7.8% at the end of 2021, a drop of 100,000 people compared to the previous quarter.
