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Youth unemployment in France


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This article (In French, from Libération) is a grim picture of the difficulties of getting a job in France for young people 15-24 years old.

Some key points:

At 18% it is 7% higher than the average among other rich countries.

22nd out of 30 countries

Young people risk being worse affected by the present crisis

There is a chronic instability in policy which has lead to 80 initiatives in 30 years

The educational establishment and system of qualifacations is too fixed and rigid

The system also creates an underclass who are left aside

15% of boys have problems of literacy at 17 years old.

It is something to be taken into account if you have children here who might be going to look for a job in France in the future.

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Norman - you forgot to add that native french speakers will find it easier to find employment than non-fluent immigrants.

I wonder how many of the messages in these negative threads will find their way into the Living France magazine. [;-)]

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Hi

It's one of the main reasons for my decision to take my son back to the UK for his secondary education.  I know he will have the same issues in the UK to find work but at least he will have a much wider choice of careers instead of liiving to specialise at  a young age and be stuck in that track.

 

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I don't know much about the problems of school leavers in France,   but it is common knowledge in the UK that even graduates struggle to find jobs - some with 'Macjobs' (working in McDonalds etc), and many unemployed.  Some do have poorly rated 'degrees' so that is part of the problem.

Education here (and I write as a teacher with decades of experience in secondary schools) can be as specialised, and  specialising at a young age too.   Sixth  form/ FE college (for 17-18 yr olds)  is usually very specialised indeed.   The Bac has lots to recommend it and the better UK schools either offer it,  or are considering it.   Sadly, the average LEA school cannot afford to offer it.  

GCSE subjects are chosen at the end of year 9 when children are only 13/14 years old.   In  southern  Wiltshire we also have the 11+ which does determine a child's future at a very young age.   

And,   in many schools around the UK children still leave without basic literacy and numeracy skills.  I can't see that the grass is greener here.   With NuLab and the mess we're in at present,   I suspect that the job scene here will be amongst the most difficult for unskilled/inexperienced  young people in the future. 

 

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NormanH is referring to the OCDE report (Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Economique) which has just been published, and is a bit of a bombshell - it is in all the French papers today.

According to that report, French youth unemployment is 18%, one of the very highest in developed countries (average being 11%).

France comes 23rd out of the 30 developed countries listed, in terms of youth employment.

So much for those people who believe that moving to France will give their children a better future.... unless, of course, something hugely effective is done and those figures improve dramatically....

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[quote user="tegwini"]

I don't know much about the problems of school leavers in France,   but it is common knowledge in the UK that even graduates struggle to find jobs - some with 'Macjobs' (working in McDonalds etc), and many unemployed.  Some do have poorly rated 'degrees' so that is part of the problem.

Education here (and I write as a teacher with decades of experience in secondary schools) can be as specialised, and  specialising at a young age too.   Sixth  form/ FE college (for 17-18 yr olds)  is usually very specialised indeed.   The Bac has lots to recommend it and the better UK schools either offer it,  or are considering it.   Sadly, the average LEA school cannot afford to offer it.  

GCSE subjects are chosen at the end of year 9 when children are only 13/14 years old.   In  southern  Wiltshire we also have the 11+ which does determine a child's future at a very young age.   

And,   in many schools around the UK children still leave without basic literacy and numeracy skills.  I can't see that the grass is greener here.   With NuLab and the mess we're in at present,   I suspect that the job scene here will be amongst the most difficult for unskilled/inexperienced  young people in the future. 

[/quote]

I think your missing my point, of course you chose subjects in UK schools at 13, I do remember it's not that long ago[:)].  The differene in France is once you are set on a path it is nigh on impossible to change it and adults virtually never change careers, it's just not heard of here.  In the UK you can change about more easily even retrain very late in life, I have a friend who has just become a teacher at 47 having been a postmen all his life, that would be impossible to achieve I believe in France.

So as I said every country has it's issues, when I left school youth unemployment was really high (late eighties) I had to take any job that came by and in my twenties studied and changed careers and happily was successful in doing so.

There is still a very elitist system in France and some jobs are just not accessable to those who have not been to the right schools and Uni's.

Whilst the grass may not be greener in the UK, as far as schooling goes having experienced french schools for 6 years I really feel that it's the right choice for my son who is very bright and needs more than a regurgitated poem every week to ensure he does not lose interest all together in education.

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 Panda,  good luck sending your son back to the UK for his secondary education. 

Perhaps 'a regurgitated poem' might be boring, but I hope you have found a school with reasonable standards of discipline, where teachers are able to and do actually teach.  

Even in rural Wiltshire we have some grim schools, and a few that are very good.   The very good schools have seriously difficult entrance exams (11+) and you need to be well above average to pass the exam. The other LEA schools usually have very poor exam results,  high  absentee numbers and bad behaviour.  

Yet these grim schools OFSTED usually rates as satisfactory - meaningless or what !

The UK is also elitist, and school leavers and  graduates are judged on their schools and universities.  Many non-Russell Group university graduates cannot find  appropriate jobs.

Whatever you decide to do I hope that this huge change for your son works out for the best.

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Tegwini, we're talking a whole different level of unemployment. It is simple not possible to get ANY job, be it in McDo or stacking supermarket shelves. Nada, de rien, nothing. For a British person it is difficult comprehend, as is the education specialisation to which Panda refers. For example, my wife has a nephew who will be an air-conditioning engineer (because he will get a job with his dad). From 13, his education is geared to this job. When he leaves lycee he will not be able to do any other job, and the option to change careers (retrain) simply does not exist. If for some reason he can't get a job as a air-con engineer, he's stuffed, for the rest of his life.

My wife was caught in this trap, and fortunately for me, moved to the UK. 13 years of marriage, I'm seconded to 3 different countries, and things come full circle, we're back here, and she still can't do the job she's done for 14 years in 3 countries, because she hasn't got the right diploma. I sincerely hope Sarkozy doesn't give in to the over pampered, "job for life", foncs who are on strike. France needs a revolution alright, but in education and business. Think 1970s Britain, and you will be close.

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[quote user="tegwini"]

 Panda,  good luck sending your son back to the UK for his secondary education. 

Perhaps 'a regurgitated poem' might be boring, but I hope you have found a school with reasonable standards of discipline, where teachers are able to and do actually teach.  

Even in rural Wiltshire we have some grim schools, and a few that are very good.   The very good schools have seriously difficult entrance exams (11+) and you need to be well above average to pass the exam. The other LEA schools usually have very poor exam results,  high  absentee numbers and bad behaviour.  

Yet these grim schools OFSTED usually rates as satisfactory - meaningless or what !

The UK is also elitist, and school leavers and  graduates are judged on their schools and universities.  Many non-Russell Group university graduates cannot find  appropriate jobs.

Whatever you decide to do I hope that this huge change for your son works out for the best.

[/quote]

Thanks tegwini, you have no idea what it's like having to take this decision and your remarks help a great deal, (not)!

I prefer to take my chances in a country where I know the system and can make damn sure he is getting what he needs the area I come from and will return to has some great schools so I'm not concerned about that, you also have no idea what it's like for teens (ados and adults) in France to get a job.... I do know what it's like in the UK and it's tougher than it has been for a long time but not as tough as France.

 

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Surely, the French youth unemployment figures in the OECD report ("Jobs for Youth") fully support  Panda's and Velcorin's posts?

Or should that report be totally ignored because it doesn't fit in with the idea that

France = Good, UK = Bad ?

How about actually reading the many articles in today's French press that quote that report?

 

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I'm not sure whether it is a case of Good v Bad. Michael will be a 10 times better trained air-con engineer than anything turned out in the UK. However, the world changes so fast these days that you need to be flexible and adaptable, not a absolute master of one thing. Example. One of my wife's nieces spent 6 years training to be a bank counter clerk, why is that considered necessary in this day and age? Older people will always like to use the counter, but I haven't been in a bank for 10 years, or my wife, it's all on-line, cards and cash points. Bank branches are disappearing all over France, so will she have a job in 10 years? The answer is probably not. However, she will be a brilliantly trained bank clerk (they don't teach them anything about customer service though[:D]).
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Blimey - 6 years to be a counter clerk in a bank!!  When I worked in a bank I think anyone who couldn't do that after a few months, with customer service,  would have been out.  I'm sure the training was very THOROUGH, but it does seem a bit excessive.
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[quote user="velcorin"]

...... but I haven't been in a bank for 10 years, or my wife

[/quote]

Just a suggestion but perhaps you should read carefully what you have typed before hitting the post button.

John

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[quote user="Iceni"]

[quote user="velcorin"]

...... but I haven't been in a bank for 10 years, or my wife

[/quote]

Just a suggestion but perhaps you should read carefully what you have typed before hitting the post button.

John

[/quote]

LOL, thanks for that, a lighter note, just what I needed

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the most tragic thing in France is that young people of Beur/Arab/North African descent - most of them born and bred in FRANCE- have a huge unemployment rate- compared to the rest of the population. I am definitely no friend of Sarko, but at least he has acknowledged the problem and is working on finding solutions and finding way to allow access to better -then higher education. It is a dreadful fact of French life - with so many factors involved.

The UK does have private and so called public (!!!!) schools - but at least no private Universities like in France.

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[quote user="odile"]

The UK does have private and so called public (!!!!) schools - but at least no private Universities like in France.
[/quote]

With the cost of some Universities in the UK you may have to have a public/private company to afford the cost of sending your little darlings,  scolarship entrants excluded.

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[quote user="odile"]the most tragic thing in France is that young people of Beur/Arab/North African descent - most of them born and bred in FRANCE- have a huge unemployment rate- compared to the rest of the population. I am definitely no friend of Sarko, but at least he has acknowledged the problem and is working on finding solutions and finding way to allow access to better -then higher education.
[/quote]

This may not get them jobs but it will keep them off the unemployed fugures, at least for a while.

John

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[quote user="odile"]the most tragic thing in France is that young people of Beur/Arab/North African descent - most of them born and bred in FRANCE- have a huge unemployment rate- compared to the rest of the population.

[/quote]

While this tallies with my observations I don't think there are any official figures.

Isn't one of the problems the perverse effect of 'Republican values'..the fact that no official distiction is allowed when making surveys etc., and so nobody has a real grasp of the scale of the problem.

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[quote user="NormanH"]Isn't one of the problems the perverse effect of 'Republican values'..the fact that no official distinction is allowed when making surveys etc., and so nobody has a real grasp of the scale of the problem.[/quote]

I argue the very same point very often when discussing racism and unemployment with French people.

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[quote user="tegwini"]

 Sixth  form/ FE college (for 17-18 yr olds)  is usually very specialised indeed.   The Bac has lots to recommend it [/quote]

 

Tegwini, perhaps you do not know in fact how the baccalaureat system works?

You choose which bac to do.   If you have a bac pro spécialisé en making false teeth, or in maintenance automobile, then you're pretty much stuck with making false teeth or fixing cars for the rest of your life - if you find a job at all.   And it's not easy to change path - there are structural and cultural barriers in your way.   That's what this story is all about.

Of course the bac has its good points, but it is not in itself an all-encompassing, all-enabling qualification, and it is silly to romanticise it as such.   In fact, Darcos has been making noises that he wants to change the system to be more like the English one.    

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Tegwini, I've said it before and I'll say it again the French Bac is nothing like the IB. The French Bac is virtually unknown in the UK and certainly doesn't have the 'kudos' of the IB.

Personally I can see little to recommend the Bac or French education in general and I speak as a parent who has had considerable experience of both UK and French education.

Like Panda we are returning to the UK. Coincidentally to rural Wiltshire where our children have places in a school with an Outstanding OFSTED report and where all the parents I have spoken to have nothing but good things to say about it.

As for discipline in French schools, what a myth that is, in my experience anyway. If discipline includes abusing the teachers, wandering around the class during lessons, refusing to work, daily punch ups during the lunch hour, throwing spitballs at the teachers, vandalising the toilets so often that they are now closed except for one hour a day, then yes, it's great here. If not.... Stabbing of teachers is becoming almost commonplace in France now. My children's school is, like the one in Wiltshire, in a semi-rural market town. French education, which is limited and limiting, has sucked the life out of my children. I fear that on their return to the UK they will be so far behind their counterparts, having never written an essay, never having been expected to have an independent thought in their heads, never having had to critique a poem or piece of work, etc.

The Bac is incredibly limiting as others have said. It can also be very exclusive - as in excluding people who struggle with one subject. An example. My French neighbour's daughter wants to be a vet. There is a huge shortage of rural vets, especially large animals specialists which she wants to be. In order to get on the concours for Vet School, you need a Bac S. After a year in Lycee, she has been told that her maths moyen isn't high enough and she is being thrown off the course. The vet with whom she did her stage is horrified. He believes that she will make an excellent vet and also says that very little maths is actually required.

She now has to change to a different Bac at a different Lycee 100kms from home.

On a more general note, I have lots of dealings with bilingual departments of French organisations. I have never come across a single one that employs a bilingual British person rather than a bilingual French one, even if the level of English is dubious to say the least. I honestly believe that a British person will never get a job if they can find a French person to do it.

I can't see any benefit for my children staying here and, like Panda, I'm happy to take my chances in a system I know and understand and in a country where there stand a better chance of getting a job.
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[quote user="Mackyfrance"]

On a more general note, I have lots of dealings with bilingual departments of French organisations. I have never come across a single one that employs a bilingual British person rather than a bilingual French one, even if the level of English is dubious to say the least. .[/quote]

I absolutely agree.

There are many  subtle barriers put up  to employment here which amount to protectionism, even though there is a supposed 'équivalence de diplômes'

For example the 'concours' system   where examinations  are written in French to be a teacher of English, or the habit of insisting on photos on CVs, so that the persons racial origins are clear.

When I first came here the translations of guides to local museums and so on was catastrophic if not hilarious, and menus in restaurants were full of 'howlers', simply because they were translated by French speakers of 'English' and never checked by a native speaker.

There is a sort of understandable reason: it is natural to have more confidence in someone who is a native speaker of your own language to know what you  want to say than in someone who has a funny accent, and you are not certain has really understood. In addition the French person has no way of measuring the quality of the finished translation.

I am sure you have read Stephen Clarke's 'a Year in the Merde' but if not I can recommend it!

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