Building a Full Employment Society

If there is a recent fact of the labour market that will remain in mind for a long time, it is the unprecedented recruitment tensions observed over the last two years in many economic sectors. On the other hand, we observe a growing precarization of some workers through atypical forms of employment, coexisting with important difficulties of reconversion for vulnerable groups. These realities directly question the very notion of full employment today. At the same time as these tensions, the unemployment rate remains high although historically low. According to the INSEE, at the end of 2024, 2.3 million people are looking for a job, representing 7.3% of the working population, of which more than 500,000 have been in this situation for more than a year, with strong territorial and generational disparities. Access to stable and skilled employment remains particularly problematic for young people with low levels of education, the elderly or people with disabilities. Reducing the unemployment rate to 5% and reaching the OECD average employment rate would require the creation of about 1 million additional jobs. How to achieve this goal and build a society where full employment is synonymous not only with quantity but also with quality of employment and stability of career paths?