The Post-Dispatch gets it on the French protests
Nearly a quarter of France’s young people are out of work. Yet millions of them took to the streets this month to protest a new law that might actually produce jobs for them.The French, it seems, would rather not work at all than work like Americans. Or Chinese, or Poles, or Mexicans for that matter….
Most French workers enjoy something close to lifetime job security — a fast-disappearing anachronism in today’s global economy. Once hired for most jobs, it’s next to impossible to get fired. If they are let go, booted workers can appeal to the government for reinstatement. Companies must give three months’ notice of layoffs, pay fines and provide severance benefits for up to three years.
So, faced with the high cost of firing people, French employers are reluctant to hire. A hiring mistake could hang around smoking Gauloises and gossiping in the hallway for 40 years. Thus the French unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent, double that in the United States. For French young people who haven’t yet elbowed their way onto the job gravy train, unemployment is 24 percent, compared to 11 percent among young Americans aged 16 to 24. For restive minority youth in France, mainly those of Arab descent, the joblessness rate is close to a whopping 50 percent.
Exactly. Why more people don’t get that oppressive labor laws cause employers not to hire at all remains beyond me. Apparently, it is better not to have a job at all than to have one that you might lose if you are incompetent. The French youth might not have that attitude if they didn’t also have the assurance that the state would take care of them if they are not working. But that’s a battle (to the barricades, gentlemen!) for another day.
The question the Post doesn’t address is why anyone should have employment for life. De Villepin’s proposal would still hog-tie employers by preventing them from firing workers over age 26 or those on the job more than two years. Economic freedom should mean that employers can fire the incompetent. If France doesn’t address this systemic flaw, it will continue to lose ground to the US, China and other economic powers that understand economics.
