Dealing with the unemployment crisis

The economy has been put under a bell to save lives. Quick action was taken to save jobs with public money. But when the support measures are phased out, some companies will have to lay off workers because the debt contracted during the containment will be too difficult to pay back, demand will still be too low due to the fear of the virus, or their business model will have been rendered obsolete by the crisis. Young people will arrive on a depressed labour market where a significant number of companies will be in difficulty and will not invest enough because they will have to repay their debt. In a fairly conventional way, it will therefore be necessary to support the rebound in demand and provide companies with equity capital to boost investment and take specific measures to support employment for young people in particular. But the covid-19 crisis is also accelerating trends that tend to transform the economy by giving a more central role to digitalisation, for example. This should be used to build a greener and more inclusive economy. To do this, we need to move in record time from a bell economy to a very agile economy with reallocations of resources between sectors. This implies very active, more imaginative labour market policies with a very strong emphasis (and subsidies) on education and training. Let’s take one example: digitalisation. This allows more teleworking and telemedicine, for example, and the easier linking of many talents by lowering geographical or social barriers. It can stimulate innovation by opening up more horizons to everyone wherever they are, through on-line education and continuing training and also through more immediate access to larger or better identified groups of consumers. It can boost productivity by promoting greater adoption of artificial intelligence. But for these positive aspects to materialise, in the short term it would be necessary to invest so that all territories and social categories have good quality digital infrastructures and equipment and also to ensure that a significant number of young people can be trained in these new technologies, whether in a basic way, with short training courses, or in a more advanced way with the rapid creation of digitalisation schools in the regions (perhaps inspired by the school 42). One could focus on training in digital technologies for a number of young people in civic service, especially girls who are under-represented in digital professions. A professional certificate could be issued based on the success of their training. Indeed, everything must be done to ensure that the digital economy is inclusive and helps to renew social ties by creating rich local ecosystems that could innovate in particular, but not only, within associations and in the social and solidarity economy.