Unemployment and market frictions in France
After my recent experience of job hunting in France, I can report on the organization of the job market in France, its structure and organization. I found that there are a lot of frictions in this market and some of the frictions are due to the excessive weight of regulation. 1. Frictions in the French employment market First, I was quite surprised that, contrary to the popular perception, there aren't many intermediaries: aka recruitment agencies that you can contact, and that know which skills are required and direct you towards the right people. Hence, it seems like most of the time, firms contact potential candidates directly. Although it may seem like bypassing an intermediary speeds up the process, actually firms then loose the screening abilities of recruitment firms, which may then result in suboptimal outcome. In my opinion, recruitment firms also don't use enough their personal connections to anticipate future demand and then to propose their candidates before a fo...