Prospects for Employment and Training between Now and 2015. The Latest Forecasts for Total Employment, Broken down by Type of Job, and Hiring Needs in France over the Next Ten Years

This article reviews the results of the latest study carried out by the Bureau d’informations et de prévisions économiques (BIPE, Office of Economic Data and Forecasting) for the Department of Evaluation, Prospects and Performance (DEPP) of the French Ministry of Education. Although the DEPP uses the term “prospective”, the study is essentially an exercise in macroeconomic forecasting based on a single set of hypotheses relating mainly to economic growth and productivity; from the results it derives forecasts of the total volume of employment together with a breakdown by professional categories. The study then takes account of the numbers of baby-boomers leaving the labour market on retirement and calculates the hiring needs thus generated between now and 2015; these are then compared with the projections for numbers of school-leavers, which suggests that there will be no foreseeable overall shortage of labour, even though there may obviously be a certain mismatch between the level and nature of the qualifications obtained by school-leavers and the the hiring needs of firms and the public sector. In short – and this is the main result of the forecasts – contrary to what used to be alleged, the large numbers of baby-boomers leaving the labour market as they retire do not give much hope of an automatic return to full employment within the next ten years, especially for young people. Oddly enough, the foreseeable mismatches appear to affect all young people, regardless of their level of qualifications, but especially those who have gone on to higher education.