Informations Rapides · 9 June 2022 · n° 150

In Q1 2022, payroll employment increased by 0.3 % Payroll employment - first quarter 2022

Between the end of December 2021 and the end of March 2022, payroll employment increased by 0.3% (+78,700 jobs). This is the fifth consecutive quarterly increase, since payroll employment rose by +0.7% in the first quarter of 2021, +1.2% in the second, +0.8% in the third and +0.6% in the fourth quarter. The increase at the beginning of 2022 comes mainly from private payroll employment, which rose by 0.3% (or +69,500 jobs). It slowed after +0.8% (+167,200 jobs) in the previous quarter. Employment in the public sector increased again moderately: +0.2% (or +9,200 jobs) after a slight drop of 0.1% (−8,000 jobs) in the previous quarter.

In total, in the first quarter of 2022, payroll employment employment was 2.9% above its first quarter of 2021 level (or +750,500 jobs). Nearly one-fifth of this increase over a year is explained by the growth of work-study contracts.

In Q1 2022, temporary employment fell by 1.7% (or −13,800 jobs) after seven consecutive quarters of increases (+350,400 cumulative job creations between the second quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2021), which had more than compensated for the historic fall in the first quarter of 2020 (−300,300 jobs).

As a reminder, in this publication, temporary workers are accounted for in the temporary employment within market services, whichever sector they carry out their assignment (industry, construction, market or non market services).

In market services excluding temporary work, payroll employment increased by 0.6% as in the previous quarter (i.e. +78,000 after +70,300 jobs). This dynamism explained most of the increase in total payroll employment. The business services sector contributed most to this increase (+34,300 jobs, excluding temporary work), followed by the information and communication sector (+19,300 jobs), household services (+12,800 jobs) and trade (+11,300 jobs), with the other sectors remaining almost stable over the quarter. Over one year, employment in market services sector (excluding temporary work) increased by 4.9%, or 573,600 jobs.

Industrial employment (excluding temporary work) decreased by 0.1% in the first quarter of 2022 after +0.2% in the previous quarter (i.e. -1,900 jobs after +7,700 jobs). Between the end of March 2021 and the end of March 2022, it increased by 0.8% (+25,000 jobs).

In construction, payroll employment slowed down this quarter: +0.1% after +0.4% in the previous quarter (or +2,200 after +6,300 jobs). Payroll employment in this sector increased by 1.9% over the year (+29,200 jobs).

Payroll employment in the mainly non-market services sector increased again in the first quarter of 2022: +0.2% after +0.3% in the previous quarter (that is +16,100 jobs after +25,700), bringing the year-on-year increase to +0.7% (or +58,000 jobs).

Compared to the employment estimate published on 9 March 2022, the increase in payroll employment (private and public) in the fourth quarter of 2021 is raised by 0.2 points, or 52,200 jobs. The revision comes mainly from the private sector (+49,300), mainly in the service sector, both market and non-market.

Compared to the flash estimate published on 6 May 2022, the increase in payroll employment in the private sector alone in the first quarter of 2022 is almost unchanged (+3,400 jobs). An upward revision in market services sector (+36,100 jobs) is offset by downward revisions in the other sectors (in particular −22,100 jobs in the non-market service sector).

These various revisions are explained by the usual factors (revisions to source data and seasonal adjustment models) as well as by methodological changes, details of which can be found in the methodological note associated with this publication.