France: occupational sectors forced to adapt to transitions

In France, 18.9 million employees are covered by one of the 263 collective agreements with more than 5,000 employees. This finding is based on a compilation of the latest statistics from the Ministry of Labour, which have just been published for the year 2022. This confirms the trend observed in the last edition of our barometer, covering the year 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, which is that the employment rate is increasing. In 2020, there were only 18 million employees falling into the occupational sectors. On the other hand, the number of collective agreements has not continued to fall, despite the policy of concentration pursued by several successive governments since 2015. However, the later entry into force (on 1 January 2024) of the national collective agreement for the metalworking industry, which will still had 30 agreements in 2022 (compared with 64 in 2020), is to reduce their number. mind RH has again this year retrieved the data issued by the ministry’s research department (Dares) in order to compare these agreements on a number of indicators, including pay, gender inequality and the age pyramid. For greater relevance, we have grouped these branches into 14 major sectors.

Distinct employment dynamics

While all the major sectors have seen an increase in the number of employees,…