France Pays Twice for Imposed Part-Time Work

One million two hundred thousand employees work part-time without having chosen to, earning approximately 1,013 euros net per month [1], or 203 euros below the poverty threshold of 1,216 euros [2], in a declared job. The state then pays them the employment bonus to compensate. This double payment—a benefit following impoverished employment—signals a labor market that fiscal policy has itself constructed. Social contribution exemptions cost 75 billion euros per year [11] and have made short-term positions structurally more profitable than enriched positions. In 2027, the choice is between continuing to compensate through public transfers a mechanism that fiscal policy fuels, or reforming exemptions, establishing an enforceable right to full-time work, and conditioning public procurement to employers who expand hours.

A Surface Decline, a Trap in Depth

In 2024, 4.2 million employees work part-time in their primary job in France, or 17.4% of employees excluding apprentices [3]. The proportion fell by 2.9 percentage points between 2014 and 2022 and then stabilized [3]. This decline is real. It masks a harsher reality.

A quarter of part-time employees say they want to work more, according to INSEE [4]. This figure underestimates the phenomenon: some of those surveyed have abandoned the idea of working more [4]. In absolute terms, 1.2 million employees want a larger volume of hours but cannot obtain it [4].

The long trajectory is instructive. Between 1975 and 1999, the proportion of part-time employees increased by 11 percentage points [5]. In the 1980s and 1990s, this increase resulted directly from public policies that financially encouraged companies to hire part-time [3]. The expansion stopped when these incentives were eliminated [3]. Involuntary part-time work in France is largely a political construction.

European comparison confirms this by contrast. In December 2024, the part-time rate reaches 16.5% in France against 38.6% in the Netherlands [6]. The gap does not lie in volume: in the Netherlands, this part-time work is massively wanted, particularly by highly qualified women. In France, it is concentrated in the least qualified jobs and most often imposed.

Women, Blue-Collar Workers, Daily Services

The geography of involuntary part-time work is precise. In 2023, 26.6% of female employees work part-time compared with 7.5% of men [7]. Women represent nearly 78% of part-time employees [7]. Three-quarters of involuntary part-time employees are women.

Involuntary part-time work is twice as frequent among blue-collar workers as among managers [4]. The sectors most exposed are administrative and support services, including office cleaning, with 8.3% of jobs in the sector concerned compared with 4.2% across all sectors [7]. These are followed by education at 7.8%, artistic and leisure activities at 7.7%, hotels and restaurants at 7.5%, and health and social services at 5.8% [7].

These jobs are also the most fragmented. In 2021, the monetary poverty rate for part-time employees reached 15.7% compared with 5.2% for full-time employees [9]. An employee whose employer caps the contract at 24 hours weekly at the minimum wage, the legal floor, receives approximately 1,013 euros net per month [1]. To reach the minimum wage at full-time, or approximately 1,478 euros net, they would need to work 52 more hours per month than their contract allows [1].

These service jobs are heirs to a model where subcontracting externalized the human cost of essential functions. Social contribution reduction policies from the 1990s-2010s helped lock them into a low-wage and reduced social protection trap [10].

The Fiscal Architecture That Pays Employers Not to Enrich Positions

The causal chain starts with social contribution exemptions, whose cost to public finances reaches 75 billion euros in 2023 [11]. Their strong degressive nature creates low-wage traps and hinders promotions [11]. The mechanism is simple: overtime hours and salary increases become more expensive than maintaining a short position. Employers therefore multiply brief contracts rather than enriching existing positions.

The employment bonus partially compensates for the employee’s loss of income, but does not change the employer’s incentive. We redistribute on a labor market we ourselves have impoverished.

The 2024 Bozio-Wasmer report documents this dynamic and proposes reducing employer social contribution relief at the minimum wage level to “de-minimum-wage” the French economy [12]. The reform aims to promote employment and wage dynamics between 1.2 and 2.5 times the minimum wage [12]. Its effects on employment would be slightly positive, on the order of 10,000 to 20,000 jobs depending on assumptions retained [12].

The same polarization operates at the macro scale. Service technology that automates low value-added tasks can either eliminate positions or redesign them into enriched jobs, depending on the orientation labor policy gives to demand. Paul Osterman, in Disposable Workers (Harvard UP, 2026), draws the consequence: we must build constraints that give companies the flexibility they need, without this leading to bad jobs [14]. Persistent obstacles in the socio-fiscal system hinder increased working hours for very part-time employees [8]. The December 2024 IGAS report emphasizes gaps in mobilizing employment and training policies toward these workers [8].

Reform Exemptions or Finance Compensation Indefinitely

The 2027 arbitration is architectural. Continuing to pay benefits to workers below the poverty threshold while financing 75 billion euros in exemptions is the most costly configuration [11]. Redirecting a portion of these exemptions toward incentivizing job quality means acting on the mechanism rather than its consequences.

Four levers follow from this logic.

Modify the structure of exemptions so that moving from 24 to 35 hours weekly ceases to penalize the employer. The Bozio-Wasmer reform traces this path by breaking the dynamic that continuously reinforces exemptions on low wages [12]. One figure frames the debate: estimated positive effects on employment are between 10,000 and 20,000 positions [12]. This parametric recalibration is the transitional mechanism of a sectoral architecture, detailed in the article “The State Subsidizes Wage Stagnation.”

Hold ordering clients accountable for subcontracted job quality. Public procurement can impose minimum work duration clauses in cleaning, collective catering, and home-care markets. This is a policy for supplying quality jobs, not redistribution.

Strengthen the 24-hour legal floor and lift opaque sectoral exemptions. The December 2024 IGAS report formulates 22 recommendations to ensure that increased recourse to part-time results in better work-life balance [8]. Among them are a right to part-time in large companies and opening interprofessional negotiation [15]. This right must be accompanied by an enforceable right to full-time work for constrained employees.

Invest in training for involuntary part-time employees to open real mobility for them. In 2021, these employees had more limited access to professional training than full-time employees [9]. A renewed framework must adapt supply to these workers’ hourly constraints [8].

The first option, financing indefinitely the effects of a poorly calibrated fiscal system, costs more each year and leaves 1.2 million people blocked below their own potential [4]. The second restructures incentives so that the work hour is worth enough that none are missed, at the cost of a parametric reform of exemptions whose budgetary effects remain to be precisely calibrated over time.

Sources

[1] Calculations based on minimum wage as of June 1, 2026, gross hourly rate €12.31, DARES/INSEE. Amount at 24 hours/week: approximately €1,013 net; minimum wage at full-time: approximately €1,478 net. URL: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/serie/000879878 (accessed 09/08/2026).

[2] INSEE, poverty threshold 2026 at €1,216 net/month. URL: https://salerya.fr/bulletin/seuil-pauvrete-salaire-2026-si-tu-touches-moins-1216-euros/ INSEE relay (accessed 09/08/2026).

[3] INSEE, DARES, “Part-time: Employment, Unemployment, Labor Income,” Labor Force Survey 2024, 2024 edition. URL: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/8376858?sommaire=8376908 (accessed 09/08/2026).

[4] Center for Observation of Society, “The Share of Part-Time Workers Has Returned to 1990s Levels,” May 2026, based on INSEE Labor Force Survey 2024 data. URL: https://www.observationsociete.fr/hommes-femmes/emploi/evolution-temps-partiel/ (accessed 09/08/2026).

[5] INSEE, DARES, “Since 1975, Annual Working Time Has Fallen by 350 Hours, But with Less Regular and More Controlled Hours,” France, Social Portrait, 2019 edition. URL: https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/4238439?sommaire=4238781 (accessed 09/08/2026).

[6] Eurostat, “Part-time employment rate,” series tesem100, December 2024 data. URL: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tesem100/default/table (accessed 09/08/2026).

[7] DARES, “What Work Schedule Organization for Part-Time Employees?”, Dares Analyses no. 74, December 2024. URL: https://dares.travail-emploi.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2cdc75ee24e32517b8dc3b5534c4e12a/Dares_DA_Organisation_travail_temps_partiel.pdf (accessed 09/08/2026).

[8] IGAS, Antoine Magnier and Louis-Charles Viossat, “Part-Time and Involuntary Part-Time Work: Possible Shifts for a Renewed Framework,” December 2024. URL: https://www.igas.gouv.fr/temps-partiel-et-temps-partiel-contraint-des-inflexions-possibles-pour-un-cadre-renove (accessed 09/08/2026).

[9] UNSA, “Involuntary Part-Time Work: Act to Reduce Employment Precarity,” June 2025, based on DREES/INSEE 2021 data. URL: https://www.unsa.org/Temps-partiel-subi-agir-pour-reduire-la-precarite-de-l-emploi.html (accessed 09/08/2026).

[10] Bruno Palier, Christine Erhel, Working Better, PUF/Vie des idées, 2025. URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruno-palier-10ba40ab/ (accessed 09/08/2026).

[11] Court of Accounts, evaluation “Social Contribution Exemption Policies: A Necessary Shift,” based on the Bozio-Wasmer report, High Commissioner for Strategy and Planning, October 2024. URL: https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/plateformes-citoyennes/plateforme-evaluations-politique-publique/explorer-evaluations/les-46 (accessed 09/08/2026).

[12] Antoine Bozio and Étienne Wasmer, “Social Contribution Exemption Policies: A Necessary Shift,” report to the Prime Minister, High Commissioner for Strategy and Planning, October 2024. URL: https://www.strategie-plan.gouv.fr/publications/mission-bozio-wasmer-politiques-dexonerations-de-cotisations-sociales-une-inflexion (accessed 09/08/2026).

[13] Simon Johnson, quotation WBUR All Things Considered, MIT News, October 2024. URL: https://news.mit.edu/in-the-media?page=81 (accessed 09/08/2026).

[14] Paul Osterman, Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment, Harvard University Press, 2026. URL: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/companies-use-disposable-workers-transforming-employment (accessed 09/08/2026).

[15] AEF Info, “Part-Time Work: IGAS Recommends Changes to the Legal Framework and Opening Interprofessional Negotiation,” December 19, 2024. URL: https://www.aefinfo.fr/depeche/723382 (accessed 09/08/2026).