The unemployment rate, within the meaning used by the International Labour Organization (ILO), is a widespread measurement that meets strict criteria relating to availability and the search for employment. However, this indicator does not take account of all of the people who would like to work more. It also does not include people who want to work but who are not actively seeking work or are not immediately available for work. Taking into account the underemployment and unemployment halo indicators provides an enhanced diagnosis of the inequalities on the labour market. In metropolitan France, in addition to the 2.6 million people unemployed in 2017, 3.0 million people are facing restrictions in respect of the work they can do.

Within the European Union (EU), examining all of this restricted or “underused” labour reveals, for certain countries, situations different from those seen when viewed solely through the lens of the unemployment rate. Though the overall rankings remain unchanged, such analysis places the good performances of countries such as the United Kingdom or the Netherlands into perspective and casts other countries, such as Poland or Slovakia, in a better light. France’s position in the rankings of European countries remains fairly stable, when based solely on the unemployment rate or when the underuse of labour as a whole is taken into account. Lastly, a more refined analysis of the underuse rate, based on age, gender and level of qualifications, reveals that barriers to employment affect countries and people differently, depending on their characteristics.