Abstract
This paper reviews unemployment issues of young workers in France. Since the 1970s, major policy issues in this country have revolved around the high unemployment rates for young workers. Several avenues of policies have been attempted: to give longer schooling to the young population (the average schooling years rose by 3 years from 1982-1983 to 1996-1997) and to provide subsidies (often with the possibility of vocational training) for the employment of young workers. Lately, employment policies tend to focus more sharply on those workers with a vulnerable profile (for instance, school dropouts in areas where industry is declining). Cohort surveys of young workers show that they tend to have a much longer period of transition (often 5 years of more) between school and work (stable employment). This transition is, for many young people, a variegated and longer trajectory composed of periods of fix-term employment, unemployment and training before arriving to a stable open-ended employment. This trend is partly due to the difficulties and conditions of the labour market but also partly due to the desire of young people to find suitable jobs.
