Labour Market Segmentation and Youth Employment Insertion in France: A Job-Finding Channels Approach

Compared to wages and promotion strategies, the role of job-finding channels (i.e. employment agencies, personal contacts, direct applications, job adverts, school etc.) in labour market segmentation remains neglected. Drawing on a longitudinal French survey which analyses the labour market insertion of young people after they left school (Enquête Génération 2004, Cereq), this contribution explores the individual paths to job finding. We argued that “job-finding channels trajectories” highlight the segmentation that young people face at the start of their working life (Marsden and Germe, 1991; Brauns et al., 2001; Leschke, 2013).

We build a typology of the “job-finding channels trajectories”, with the method used to build careers’ typology. A Principal Component Analysis and an Ascending Hierarchical Classification reveal six classes of trajectories. Two classes (social networks and “returns”, when people return in a firm where they have already worked and) belong to a labour market segment where interpersonal relations are the main way of getting a job. There are three classes of trajectories through external labour markets: one is dominated by employment agencies, one by direct applications and the last one by job adverts. Last, we consider that trajectories dominated by school and internal mobility belong to an organised or regulated labour market segment. Drawing on binomial regressions, the socio-demographic profiles of people belonging to each class are analysed, taking into account the characteristics of the job held in 2011, the number of the jobs held since they left school, the number and duration of unemployment spells. From these analyses one can deduce three results (1) within interpersonal labour market segment, there is no mobility (a few number of jobs held) but stable employment trajectories (very few if none unemployment episodes). By contrast, external labour markets are associated with unstable trajectories, with shifts between employment and unemployment. Youth people in the segment dominated by organised labour markets have several successive jobs (mobility) without any unemployment spell (employment stability). (2) The diploma is a critical signal within external and organised labour market segments; by contrast diploma does not matter in the segment dominated by interpersonal relations. (3) Socio-demographics features, as gender and origin, play a more significant role when labour market interactions are “hidden” (social networks, returns, direct applications).

Brauns, H., Gangl, M. and Scherer, S. (2001) Education and unemployment: patterns of labour market entry in France, the United Kingdom and West Germany, Mannheim Centre for European Social Research.
Leschke, J. (2013) “Has the economic crisis contributed to more segmentation in labour market and welfare outcomes? An analysis of EU countries (2008-2010)”, Revue française des affaires sociales, n° 4, 1-19.
Marsden, D. and Germe, J-F. (1991) “Young people and entry paths to long-term jobs in France and Great Britain” In: Ryan, Garonna and Edwards (eds.) The Problem of Youth: the Regulation of Youth Employment and Training in Advanced Economies. Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK, 179-199.