In metropolitan France, the private sector was severely affected by the health crisis: despite the widely deployed partial activity scheme, the wage bill fell on average by 5.3% in 2020. However, this overall drop conceals regional disparities. The aim of this article is to study the heterogeneous impact of the health crisis on the private‑sector wage bill by employment zones. The analysis shows that the sectoral employment structure is the key factor: it explains 60% of the variation in the shock broken down by region. However, there are also other effects that appear to be significant in certain zones: the labour force qualification level, the level of concentration of companies and the role played by commuters. The latter show that the presence of a neighbouring residential zone has a negative impact on the change in the private‑sector wage bill in the region under consideration. Furthermore, they cause the shock-absorbing effect of temporary employment to spill over into several multiple zones, especially within one cluster identified in Brittany.

Citation: Bedel-Mattmuller, M., El Kadiri, F. & Felder Zentz, L. (2022). Regional Analysis of the Impact of the 2020 Health Crisis on the Private-Sector Wage Bill: Structural and Local Effects. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 536-37, 95–114. doi: 10.24187/ecostat.2022.536.2082