Slight drop in private salaried employment despite a rebound in growth, according to a provisional estimate from INSEE.
Private sector salaried employment in France fell very slightly in the second quarter of 2026 with 19,300 jobs lost, or -0.1%, despite a slight rebound in growth (+0.2%), INSEE reported on Thursday in a provisional estimate.
Down year-on-year for the sixth quarter in a row, salaried employment in the private sector is 0.4% below its June 2025 level, with 79,700 jobs destroyed over one year. Despite this recent downward trend, private salaried employment still exceeds its level at the end of 2019, before the Covid health crisis, by one million jobs, or 5%.
Sectors unequally affected
By sector, industry lost 3,200 jobs (-0.1%), construction 6,100 (-0.4%), agriculture 2,500 (-0.8%), while the commercial tertiary sector excluding temporary work was stable. On the other hand, 2,100 jobs were created in the non-market tertiary sector (+0.1%).
In the second quarter, temporary employment fell more sharply than in the first, by 1.4% compared to 0.4%, details INSEE.
This quasi-stability in employment occurs against a backdrop of a slight rebound in growth, to +0.2% in the second quarter, driven by exports and consumption, in a very uncertain international context marked by great volatility in oil prices.
Also in the first quarter, the labor market was marked by virtual stability in the private sector (-0.1%) and in the public sector (+0.1%).
On August 28, INSEE will publish consolidated figures for the second quarter, also including data on public employment and self-employed employment.
