On the French labour market, there are fewer and fewer people with few or no qualifications (those whose highest level of education is the French Brevet (certificate of general education)). Since 1982, their share has dropped by two thirds, from 54% to 16% of labour market participants (active and inactive within the halo of unemployment) in 2018. Owing to the general rise in the level of education, the position of each level on the qualification scale is falling over time: for each educational qualification, there are more and more higher-level qualified people.

This position on the qualification scale and the risk of unemployment are closely linked. Thus, for forty years, the relative situation of those with few or no qualifications has deteriorated almost continually on the labour market. Yet the relative risk of forced non-employment (unemployment or halo of unemployment) is closely linked to the position on the qualification scale; this link remains stable over time and exists across all types of qualification. Therefore, with the general rise in the level of education, each educational qualification offers less and less protection against forced non-employment: the situation, relative to the average, of the median student who completed a “Baccalauréat” diploma in 2018 was equivalent to the median holder of the Brevet (end of lower secondary education) in 1982.

The level of educational qualification of labour market participants is increasing rapidly, but the demand for qualifications from the production system is not developing at the same speed. In particular, since 2003, the number of labour market participants with few or no qualifications has dropped by 36%, and their employment by 42%. However, the professions that employed these people have been stable, but they are recruiting people with higher levels of educational qualification: the most highly qualified have been downgraded, and as a counterpart, a part of those with few or no qualifications have been evicted from the labour market.

In Europe, the relative situation of those with few or no qualifications is slightly more favourable in countries where they are more numerous, such as Spain, Italy and Portugal. Since 2003, the relative situation of those with few or no qualifications on the labour market has deteriorated as their share of the population has decreased. In France, the proportion of those with few or no qualifications is close to the European average, as is their relative situation on the labour market. However, forced non-employment across all qualification levels deteriorated between 2003 and 2018, contrary to the European trend, and that of those with few or no qualifications increased much more steeply than elsewhere.