Item — HN Reader

> You're uninformed. France has that, and it doesn't result in excessive unemployment; in fact, the unemployment rates in France and in the US are practically the same, respectively 7.5% vs. 7.8%.

You might want to expand that to the youth unemployment rate.

https://tradingeconomics.com/france/youth-unemployment-rate

> Youth Unemployment Rate in France decreased to 18.90 percent in October from 19 percent in September of 2025. Youth Unemployment Rate in France averaged 20.52 percent from 1983 until 2025, reaching an all time high of 28.20 percent in November of 2012 and a record low of 14.50 percent in February of 1983.

https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/youth-unemployment... for the data by country. United States is at 10.6%.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14024887 for the US data (youth being defined as 16 - 24 in that data set)

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While the overall unemployment rate may be similar, the "hire them once and have to take exterodary action to fire them" significantly impacts the employment rate of college new graduates where it can be difficult to identify how well they actually work in the work force.

That can also lead to some social instability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_youth_protests_in_France

> ... High unemployment, especially for young immigrants, was seen as one of the driving forces behind the 2005 civil unrest in France and this unrest mobilized the perceived public urgency for the First Employment Contract. Youths are particularly at risk as they have been locked out of the same career opportunities as older workers, contributing to both a rise in tensions amongst the economically disenfranchised underclass, and, some claim, a brain drain of graduates leaving for better opportunities in Britain and the United States.

1 comments

Good points. But notice that, if the overall unemployment rate is the same, and in one country there's higher unemployment rate for youth compared to another, this means in the other there's higher unemployment rate for older workers compare to the first. The question then becomes: which is worse, more unemployed youth people, or more unemployed mature/elder people?

I'd argue more unemployed mature/elder is worse. Mature people in an at-will system don't become younger over the years to start finding better and better opportunities, rather their prospects become worse as time goes by. Conversely, young people become mature and find more and more opportunities as they age, so long-term not-at-will systems favor everyone, at the cost of making the start more difficult.

In both the corresponding difficulties can be reduced via welfare. But at-will systems tend, or at least it seems so to me, I may be wrong in this, to provide worse welfare, which may add weight to the comparison.

You can get the overall unemployment by demographic breakdown at https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea10.htm (this also gets into how do you count unemployment https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm - the reported numbers tend to be the U-3 rate, but people also like to quote the U-6 rate if they want bigger numbers ... the demographic numbers are likely based on the U-3 rate).

The United States is currently showing 4.1% for 20 and over with the 20-24 range at 8.3% and 25 and over at 3.7%.

For France... labor force participation (the flip of the unemployment number) for 25-54 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LRAC25TTFRQ156S is 88% and for 15-24 it is 43%.

The United States shows relatively consistent unemployment with entry level unemployment trending up. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=LNU04000036,LNU0400008... (select data sets at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/release/tables?eid=48595&rid=50 )

I'm also going to challenge the "US and France have similar rates".

https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate

United States by that measure is 4.6% while France is 7.7%. For the US at 7.8% would be the U-6 number which includes everyone working a part time job.

> U-6 Total unemployed, plus all people marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all people marginally attached to the labor force

France's 7.7% rate matches https://www.economy.com/france/unemployment-rate (seasonly adjusted)

> The unemployed under the International Labour Office (ILO) definition comprise all working-age persons (conventionally those of at least 15 years of age) that 1°) during the reference week had no employment, even for one hour, 2°) were available to start work within the next two weeks and 3°) had actively sought employment at some time during the previous four weeks or had found a job due to start within 3 months.

Note the "even for one hour" means that comparing it to the U-6 rate is inappropriate. So comparing it to the U-3 (4.6%), U-4 (4.9%) or U-5 (5.6%) would be more correct.

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With that in mind, I would urge you to reconsider your comparison about how increasing the difficulty to fire someone impacts employment.

Furthermore, there's only one state in the US that is not at will... Montana.

https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/employment-a...

> Montana is the only state that is not an at-will employment state. In Montana, employers must have a valid reason for terminating an employee, and employees can only be fired for just cause.

However, that is "just cause" not "have to attempt to find another position for them at the company before they can be fired."

Comparing employment stats for Montana (45th state by population) may be difficult to compare with other states. https://montanafreepress.org/2018/11/17/where-the-jobs-are-m... -- would you compare the unemployment Mato Grosso do Sul to the rest of Brazil - and would you be able to attribute employment stats there to one difference in employment law vs the rest of the country?