Growth in productivity is compared with growth in employment over two periods of steady growth (1987-1990 and 1996-1999). The comparison is made using individual business data with a differentiation between the contribution of businesses operating in both peiods(enduring businesses) to growth in productivity and the contribution of start-ps/disappearances. Labour productivity rose half as fast in the late 1990s as in the late 1980s. This slowdown was less marked in the case of total factor productivity (TFP). In the second period, this lower growth was due essentially to the enduring businesses, which contributed to the increase in productivity by means of qualitative and quantitative changes to the use of factors within each unit («intra» component of productivity growth) and by means of real-locations of factors between businesses. However, the proportion of the productivity increase due to business start-ups/disappearances fell slightly from one period to the next due to a decrease in the contribution of start-ups. At the same time, the net employment growth rate dropped due to a sharper fall in gross job creations than in destructions. This can be explained mainly by a sof-tening of the effect of business start-ups on gross job creations and by enduring businesses axing fewer jobs. This growth richer in jobs would lend a more «Smithian» than «Schumpeterian» nature to French growth.