A partnership approach to help build responses to the social effects of the crisis in Paris
A need for observation and action in a singular context
Since March 2020, the lives of Parisians, and more broadly of the French, have been profoundly shaken by the Covid-19 crisis and its multiple effects.
The first available data shows the particular severity of the economic crisis in Paris. In 2020, 45,700 salaried jobs were destroyed in Paris, that is 44% of regional losses and 15% of the national loss. In the entire year the rate of unemployment rose by 0.5 points in Paris while it very slightly fell in Metropolitan France. It affected 6.8% of the working population at the end of December 2020.
In this context, an Observatory of Parisian Economy was launched in March 2021.
At the same time, the number of category A job seekers rose by 16% in one year in Paris, compared to +8% in France. Young people were particularly affected with a rise of 31% in the number of job seekers aged under 25 in one year, compared with +9% in France. Over 67,600 people were recorded to be benefiting from the RSA in March 2021, that is an increase of +8.2% in one year (a greater increase than the national rate).
Although these figures are proof of an economic crisis setting in, the practical effects upon the society are more difficult to assess objectively, either because the available data are not compiled in a systematic way, or because they are not yet visible due to the exceptional measures taken in Paris, as elsewhere, to limit the immediate impact of the crisis.
What is the immediate and lasting social impact of the crisis which is taking hold? What impact has the drop in income had and will have for part-time employees and those with precarious employment who have lost their jobs? What effects has this crisis had, is having and could have on the budgets and lives of families, young people (students or not), and single people? What is the impact of successive lockdowns in terms of the psychological fragility of households? What impact does the crisis have on people accommodated in the City’s social spaces and services? What will the scale of the social crisis be when the exceptional measures are stopped (solidarity bonuses and exceptional benefits, social aid automatically renewed during a period, and the extension of the truce on housing eviction until June 2021 etc.)?
In order to address these questions and with the determination of being able to react the City of Paris and its partners have decided to put in place a framework able to analyse, foresee and coordinate responses concerning the entire social field in Paris.
More on the French page of the website.
