Marked by a difficult national and international situation, the French economy has gone through a year 2024 full of uncertainties (absence of budget, slippage of public accounts, return from Donald Trump to the White House). And just like employees, business leaders have also suffered. At least that’s what reveals to us the report of the Entrepreneurs Employment Observatory, produced by the GSC association and the Altares firm, published Monday, March 10. According to this study, the number of business leaders who lost their job in France is quantified at 60,852, an increase of 18 % compared to 2023.
It is among sectors such as construction (+ 23.7 %), real estate agencies (+ 34.7 %) and transport/logistics (+ 29.3 %), very exposed to “cyclical tensions”, that losses were the most numerous.
In addition, these figures coincide with the increase in business failures (safeguards, rectification or judicial liquidations). According to a January study in Altares, the number of companies concerned is estimated at 67,830 (+ 17 %), 46,640 of which are due to legal liquidations (+ 13 %).
However, the phenomenon is not recent, since it is since 2022 that the number of failures has increased, for two effects. The first being the Post-Cavid catch-up, the period during which the failures were relatively few thanks to massive state aid. The second being the growth of recent political and geopolitical uncertainties.
In fact, failures “have been going on records for months, legal liquidations […] are predominant, eliminating the employment of more than 60,000 managers in 2024 and probably even more in 2025, “observes in the study published on Monday, Thierry Millon, director of studies Altares.
Failures that mainly concern very small businesses
However, the situation is not equivalent from one corporate profile to another and from one region to another. Thus, the study reveals that almost three -quarters of entrepreneurs in a loss of jobs are at the head of a very small businesses with less than 3 employees.
As for the highest increase (+ 30.2 % in one year), it concerns TPE managers with 6 to 9 employees. Strong increase is also observed in craftsmen-merchants (+ 18.3 %) and liberal professions (+ 16.6 %). Almost a third of affected entrepreneurs headed a business over 10 years old. On the other hand, the loss of employment of business managers with more than 50 employees fell by 19.8 %.
Finally, in a context where the unemployment rate of seniors Already concerns 21 % of the age class, the job loss of over 60s increased sharply compared to 2023 (+ 33.2 %),
As for the most impacted regions, they are: Ile-de-France, Normandy and the Pays de la Loire, with increases above 25 %. For their part, Center-Val de Loire and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté are the regions, among which the progression is the weakest. It remains below 8 %.
For Thierry Millon, the study “tends to campaign for a very proactive risk management”. We must inform business leaders “about the financial security nets at their disposal,” adds Hervé Kermarrec, president of the GSC. This is precisely the vocation of the voluntary insurance contract subscribed by this association, designed in 1979 and administered by the three representative employers’ organizations, MEDEF, CPME and U2P.