Who are these unemployed executives struggling to find a job?

4.1% of executives unemployed: a misleading statistical finding

It is not a coincidence. At the very moment when the pension reform is the subject of debate, and risks animating political, social and societal life in the coming weeks, Apec (Agency for the employment of executives) has joined forces with Pôle Emploi to deliver a statistical portrait of unemployed executives.

What relationship with longer working life wanted by the executive in this reform? This is an essential point: extending working hours requires that employees always have a job at the end of their career. Including frames.

Even among executives who are supposed to find a job more easily than other employees, the study finds that there are some excluded.

Obviously, unemployment among executives is lower than compared to the rest of the population, and the study reminds us of this: white-collar workers are in “almost full employment” with an unemployment rate of 4.1% in 2021*, against 7.9% for the other categories. But among this (low) rate of executives looking for a job, some of them are close to that of workers and employees.

* Source: 2021, executive recruitments close to the pre-crisis record level, Apec, 2022

What is a “managerial job seeker”?

Persons registered with Pôle Emploi declaring that they are looking for a job as a manager, whether or not they were in their previous job, are considered as executive job seekers. To note that all these people are not unemployed, some (category E) exercising a paid activity while being registered with Pôle Emploi and inactive for certain months.

589,000 executive jobseekers were registered in ABCDE categories with Pôle emploi at the end of June 2022. Among them :

• 50% were unemployed (category A),
• 32% exercised a reduced activity (categories B and C),
• 6% were on internship, training or sick (category D),
• 12% were employed (category E). This category, which includes business creators, is more represented among executive job seekers than among other job seekers (6%).

485,000 jobseekers registered in ABC categories were looking for a managerial job in June 2022.

Age : 6.8% of unemployed executives are over 55

Among the populations of executives in difficulty, the seniors over 55 are 6.8% to find themselves without work. They are even 7.5% if they reside outside Ile-de-France.

102,000 job seekers aged 55 and over are looking for a managerial job

Source: Source: Insee, Employment survey 2021, Apec processing

Among these seniors, 36% are long-term unemployed who total more than 12 months without work.

Thus, more than half of seniors are long-term unemployed, and 20% are very long-term unemployed (more than 2 years in category A

over 27 months). Senior executives encounter greater difficulties in finding a job because of closure of businesses to their

candidacy. Suffice to say that this population, which often arrived late on the labor market (they are only 25% of a level lower than Bac +2), is more exposed to the risk of unemployment and therefore sees the number of annuities which it remains to be acquired until retirement.

From the age of 55, the chances of finding a job after a period of unemployment are greatly reduced.

Rate of access to employment by age:

You might be interested:

Place of residence : executives from disadvantaged neighborhoods more unemployed

More unexpectedly, another profile of executives encounters difficulties in returning to work: executives from “priority neighborhoods for urban policy” (QPV), the modest name to designate the difficult neighborhoods that benefit from targeted government assistance.

30,500 job seekers in QPV are looking for a managerial job.

From 30,500 executive job seekers living in these areas, almost half are under 35 years old. This is precisely the age group where their peers, from more privileged neighborhoods, have the least difficulty finding a job. So much so that the authors of the study explain that the low unemployment rate among executives in general is precisely linked to “faster exit from the lists of executive job seekers under 35”. But not all.

Breakdown of QPV executive jobseekers by region:

level of studies : the least educated over-represented among unemployed executives

The level of qualification of executive job seekers also influences their return to work. Thus, 20% of active people looking for an executive job have a diploma lower than bac+2, whereas they only represent 14% of employed executives.

Breakdown of executive job seekers by degree level:

Period of unemployment : long-term unemployed executives penalized

Beyond 12 months without a job out of the last 15, we speak of long-term unemployment. Among executives, 20% of the unemployed correspond to this profile (vs. 22% among non-executives).

95,000 long-term job seekers are looking for a managerial job

Among these long-term unemployed executives, 39% are aged 55 and over, 6% live in a priority neighborhood (QPV) and 5% declared a disability. When they combine several criteria, the weakening is even stronger.

Professions : these executives forced to change jobs to get out of unemployment

The study undermines the cliché that it is difficult to change jobs in France: 65% of executives have changed jobs to find a job and for half of them, they have even changed their professional field.

In details :

• 50% found a job in another professional field
• 35% found themselves in the job they were looking for
• 15% have found a different job but in the same professional field

It is more often young people who find a job in another professional field (57% of those under 25)

Only 35% of executive job seekers find a job that exactly matches the job they are looking for.

Registration: “ghost” job seekers

To these seniors, these less qualified and these young people from sensitive neighborhoods, there is another population often in difficulty, but not mentioned, because not listed in the files of Pôle emploi or Apec. The study mentions 18% of executives unemployed “compensable but not compensated” without really knowing who they are.

Job seekers who refuse to register? Or unemployed executives who have opted for consultancy or auto-entrepreneur assignments and who could, at the same time, receive some unemployment insurance subsidies? It is likely. But these invisible job seekers, like young people born in bad neighborhoods, and like their elders considered too early as seniors, are today in the blind spot of employment executives. They are also in the pension reform where, for the moment, little is planned for them to reach 64 with the number of sufficient annuities.

” The senior index» or the weapon of “name and shame”

Olivier Dussopt has repeatedly said that “The objective of full employment can only be achieved if we improve the employment rate of seniors”. The Minister of Labor in the midst of a pension battle hopes to be able to count on a “senior index”, wanted by the Prime Minister, so that the last years of executives go off without a hitch.

For Elisabeth Borne, this index is currently THE solution to the problem. The index is a blacklisting of companies that do not play the game by being displayed in such a way “name and shame”. The names of companies that do not respect the quota of seniors will therefore be published so that they are booed in public.

From what age, for what percentage? “The terms and conditions will be defined following an interprofessional consultation”, was content to say Olivier Dussopt. All we know for the moment is that it will only concern companies with more than 1,000 employees this year. Remember that this type of process “nomination of shame” has never borne fruit during previous attempts (particularly on gender equality) and that, moreover, non-compliance with this future rule will not give rise to any financial penalty.