French Unemployment Revisited

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A few weeks ago, I threw together some numbers and statistics suggesting that the French protesters might not be so misguided, and France-style labor protections might not cause high unemployment after all. Now David Howell and John Schmitt of EPI have a new paper getting into this in more depth.

The super-novel point here is that France’s youth unemployment-to-population ratio (8.6) is actually nearly identical to that in the United States (8.3). France’s “official” youth unemployment rate is higher primarily because very few French students enrolled in school actually work, while a lot of our college kids get jobs, so the ratio of unemployed youths to working youths is higher in France than it is here. Different numbers measure different things.

Now why do so few French high school and college students work? Maybe it’s because they can’t find jobs. Or maybe it’s because they don’t need to—their public universities are more heavily subsidized, after all. Interestingly, though, the percentage of 20 to 24-year-olds who aren’t in school and are unemployed is actually a bit lower (14.1) than it is in the United States (14.4). That seems like the main number to worry about, and France seems to be doing okay on that front.

It’s also worth noting that the share of young French adults still enrolled in education is much higher than it is in the United States (51.1 versus 35.0 percent). Again, whether that’s because French kids like school or because they have no other options is up in the air. But even if it’s because they have no other options, perhaps being “forced” to stay in school isn’t so bad: According to OECD data, French workers are, on average, 6 to 16 percent more productive than American workers. Work less; study more—maybe that’s the way to go.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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