France Unemployment Rate: Quarterly ILO Data Since 1975
The France unemployment rate published here is the ILO-definition rate computed by INSEE from its quarterly Labour Force Survey, seasonally adjusted, for metropolitan France, from the first quarter of 1975 to the first quarter of 2026 — 205 quarterly observations. The ILO definition counts someone as unemployed only if they are without work, available to start within two weeks and have actively looked for a job in the past four weeks, which makes it narrower than the administrative jobseeker count published by France Travail.
Dataset: France Unemployment Rate — ILO definition (1975–2026) · Updated 2026-01-01
Source: INSEE · ILO unemployment rate, total, metropolitan France, seasonally adjusted
Macro Takeaway
French unemployment has averaged 8.02% over the fifty-one years in this series and has spent almost none of that time below 7%. The floor moved: the rate was 3.1% in the first quarter of 1975, the series low, and has never returned to that neighbourhood. What the 1970s treated as a shock became a structural level, which is why French policy debate is about the level of the floor rather than about the cycle.
The series also contains the clearest illustration of what the ILO definition does and does not measure. In the second quarter of 2020, at the height of the first lockdown, the rate fell to 7.1% from 7.9% before the pandemic. Employment had collapsed, but the people losing work could not actively search or start within two weeks, so they left the labour force rather than entering unemployment. The number went down because the definition stopped applying, not because the labour market improved.
Dataset Overview
| Indicator | France Unemployment Rate — ILO definition (1975–2026) |
|---|---|
| Geography | Metropolitan France |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Period | Q1 1975 – Q1 2026 (205 observations) |
| Variables | date, unemployment_rate |
| Format | CSV, Excel (XLSX), JSON |
| Sources | INSEE — Labour Force Survey, ILO unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted |
| Last updated | 2026-01-01 |
Dataset Variables
The CSV, Excel and JSON files contain the following columns.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
date | Date (YYYY-MM-DD) | First day of the reference quarter |
unemployment_rate | Float | ILO unemployment rate, total population, metropolitan France, seasonally adjusted, in percent of the labour force |
Column names match the CSV headers exactly.
Download the Complete Dataset
The full France unemployment rate series is available in CSV and Excel formats.
Direct Data Access
INSEE publishes each quarterly release separately and in its BDM database. The Eco3min structured dataset returns the continuous 1975–2026 series:
Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset
https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-unemployment-rate.csv
This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool. JSON and XLSX are available at the same path with the corresponding extension.
Using the Dataset in Python
import pandas as pd url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-unemployment-rate.csv" df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"]) print(df.head()) print(df["unemployment_rate"].describe())
Using the Dataset in R
library(readr) url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/fr/fr-unemployment-rate.csv" df <- read_csv(url) head(df) summary(df$unemployment_rate)
Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.
Methodology
The series is retrieved daily by an Eco3min pipeline from INSEE’s BDM time-series database. INSEE publishes the Labour Force Survey estimate roughly seven weeks after the end of the reference quarter, and revises the two previous quarters at each release; the pipeline picks up revisions automatically. Seven weeks of lag put the Labour Force Survey among the latest arrivals in the French statistical release schedule.
The scope is metropolitan France, excluding the overseas departments, which INSEE covers in a separate series with materially higher rates. Seasonal adjustment is INSEE’s own; no Eco3min transformation is applied.
Historical Regimes
- 1975–1985 — the climb. From 3.1% to 8.8%, the fastest sustained deterioration in the series. The two oil shocks and the end of the post-war expansion moved the rate by more than five points in a decade.
- 1985–1997 — the plateau and the peak. The rate reached 10.4% in the second quarter of 1994, the series high, during the recession that followed the 1993 European exchange rate crisis.
- 1997–2008 — two incomplete descents. Down to 7.4% by 2001, back up after the dot-com bust, down again to 6.8% by early 2008. Neither descent reached the pre-1975 range.
- 2008–2015 — the double dip. The financial crisis and then the euro area sovereign crisis pushed the rate back to 10.0% by early 2013. France, unlike Germany, saw its unemployment rate rise in both episodes.
- 2015–2020 — the long improvement. Down to 7.9% by late 2019, then the statistical artefact of the first lockdown, where the rate fell to 7.1% because searching became impossible.
- 2021–2026 — low point, then drift. The rate reached 6.9% in early 2023, its lowest since 2008, before drifting back to 7.9% by the first quarter of 2026 — exactly its pre-pandemic level.
Related Macroeconomic Datasets
- US Unemployment Rate — the American comparison on the same ILO-equivalent basis
- Euro Area Unemployment Rate — France set against the monetary union
- France Real GDP — the activity series behind the cycle
- US U-6 Underemployment Rate — the broader measure the ILO rate excludes
Related Research
Macroeconomic Dataset Hub
This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.
Explore the Eco3min Dataset Hub
Sources
- INSEE — Labour Force Survey (enquête Emploi), ILO unemployment rate, total, metropolitan France, seasonally adjusted. Dataset CHOMAGE-TRIM-NATIONAL, retrieved from the INSEE BDM time-series database.
- Reuse: INSEE public statistics may be reused, including commercially, subject to acknowledgement of the source and preservation of the integrity of the information.
Dataset Reference
Last updated — 21 August 2026
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