From the cohorts of beginners who arrived on the labour market in the early 1990s to those who arrived after the 2008-2009 economic recession, pathways to employment have deteriorated considerably. Thus, almost one in five young people who arrived on the labour market for the first time in 2010 were either unemployed or economically inactive for five years after completing their studies. In addition to cyclical factors, structural changes in the process of youth integration into the labour market are emerging: the continuation, through successive surveys, of pathways that could be described in terms of ‘paradoxical stability’, running durably and continuously over fixed-term employment contracts, is coupled with a sharp decline in pathways providing fast and long-term access to permanent employment. Even so, compared with almost 20 years ago, the jobs obtained by young people on leaving education are more highly qualified and less often part time, and the range of salary rates has narrowed. Despite the fact that employment integration conditions are, on average, more difficult, the subjective view that beginners have of their respective pathways and situations is both more homogeneous and significantly more positive. Experiencing difficult employment integration conditions affects the optimism of young people far less than it used to.