The number of unemployed has exploded to nearly a million in the single month of April 2020

This is a situation never seen before! After two months of confinement and a slowdown in the economy is unprecedented, the number of registered job-seekers in category A (no activity) at Pôle emploi in France (excluding Mayotte) has jumped 843.000 in April, compared to the month of march. An explosion unheard of... 22.6% in the space of one little month. This historical growth bringing in more of 4.57 million the number of unemployed counted in the main category of Pôle emploi, which is the highest level ever recorded since the inception of the series in 1996. In comparison, the twelve months of 2009, in the midst of the financial crisis, had recorded some 386.300 new entries in category A. that Is, less than half of the month of April alone 2020... "The situation is serious and it is urgent that a general mobilization of all actors to collectively build protections for employees and job seekers," says Marylise Leon, the deputy secretary general of the CFDT.

confinement and the sharp slowdown in the economy have caused a true disaster on the job market. If all the indicators were in the green earlier this year, two months will have been enough to sweep of a reverse of hand several years of improvement. When one looks more closely, this explosion history can be explained by the shift in the month of April of 633.600 job seekers in categories B and C, namely all those who have a reduced activity, to the category A. The fact of the confinement, these vulnerable groups have suffered as a result of numerous breaches of CDD and missions, interim, and were left without any activity. Result, the number of categories A, B and C, cumulative, does not increase as 209.300, which nevertheless constitutes the highest monthly increase (+3.6 per cent) in the three categories ever recorded.

Despite the massive support of the economy and the job market with the device of partial unemployment, the executive could not, therefore, avoid the inevitable. If this increase was foreseeable, it would have been much worse without the help of the State. "In the month of April, more than 8 million people have thus benefited from the activity partial. Without this protector system that we have put in place from the beginning of the crisis, a party of them would, today, unemployment, and the number of new unemployed is counted by the millions," recalls the ministry of Labour.

second argument: the influx of many unemployed people is primarily explained by the cessation of new hires and not by "massive layoffs". And the figures prove it: if the increase of the class is historical, entries in the first three categories of Pôle emploi are down 19.1% and the outputs are also reduced, but much more important (-34,9%).

The coming months, with the downturn in the device for partial unemployment, are therefore crucial. The wave of layoffs, which threatens the economy and that many observers predict could be a new blow to a labour market already in bad posture...

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