Mind the gap

摘要

FOR nearly a decade the French have grown used to living with roughly a tenth of their workforce out of a job. Any glimpse of an improvement in unemployment figures usually makes headlines. Francois Hollande, the previous president, regularly claimed to have spotted an imminent downturn in the jobless rate, only for it to prove illusory. So what seems to be happening in the French labour market now feels rather unfamiliar: there are lots more jobs, but a growing shortage of qualified people to fill them.