France: What are we to think of zero productivity gains?

Productivity gains have disappeared in France in the recent period. Is this good or bad news? In the short term, the lack of productivity gains makes it possible to continue to create jobs and to reduce unemployment at a time when growth has become quite weak, which is normally seen as positive . This is probably due to the fact that the jobs created are primarily low-productive service jobs, as there are incentives to create such jobs in France given the cuts in social contributions on low wages; But the lack of productivity gains has two major drawbacks: It normally makes it impossible to increase the real wage of those who have a job, which helps increase social tensions; Since the average wage is accelerating in France for all types of jobs as a whole, the stagnation of productivity is leading to a rise in unit labour costs and a deterioration in cost competitiveness . In the medium term , this results in a rise in the structural unemployment rate, which is highly detrimental.