Overview
- Insee reports a 0.3% decline in salaried employment in Q3 2025, with 60,600 jobs lost in the quarter and 0.5% fewer jobs year over year, marking a fourth straight annual decline.
- Roughly two thirds of the quarterly drop stems from fewer alternance contracts after February’s cut to apprentice hiring aid to €5,000 for SMEs and €2,000 for larger firms.
- Economist Éric Heyer (OFCE) estimates productivity jumped about 0.9% over the quarter as market-sector output grew 0.6%, a combination that pressures headcount.
- Market services shed 38,300 jobs (-0.3%), agriculture fell 1.6% (-5,000), and industry slipped by 3,200 (-0.1%), with construction also down 0.3% on the quarter.
- Temporary work declined 0.2% in Q3 and 2.6% over a year, remaining 8.6% below its pre-pandemic level; registered unemployment rose 1.6% with figures affected by administrative changes, while total employment remains 5.2% above late-2019.