Insee Première · February 2021 · n° 1839

A specific employment dynamic in large enterprises

Between 2008 and 2017, in the non-agricultural commercial sector, the number of salaried employees fell in micro-enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises. Conversely, it rose in intermediate-sized and large enterprises. These developments are measured solely by comparing employment levels by enterprise category.

However, they conceal the dynamics at work. Micro-enterprises, SMEs and intermediate-sized enterprises created 275,000 salaried jobs in France over the period, but many of them changed category following growth or purchase by larger companies. Therefore, although the micro-enterprises and SMEs created jobs, their employee numbers fell over the period.

The growth of large enterprises is due to purchases of smaller companies (intermediate-sized enterprises in particular). Outside of these external contributions, large enterprises cut jobs in the majority of employment areas (-246,000).

Enterprises created 340,000 salaried jobs in the ten most dynamic employment areas, while salaried employment grew little over the entire territory and fell in more than two thirds of employment areas.