Unemployed people are not counted as such

That life was simple Thomas time! A small doubt about the resurrection of Christ According to the story of John, Jesus then said to the Apostle: "Advance your finger here, and look at my hands;" also advance your hand and put it in my side. "And hop! Thomas is satisfied. Today, everything has changed. In modern societies become infinitely larger and therefore more complex, the perception of reality is more simply eye or hand, but the statistics also. And here, the disbelief is more difficult to evacuate. A small doubt about 119,000 jobs according to Unedic in the first half of the year, or an unemployment affecting less than 9 of the assets To convince, difficult to do more than comforting tirades or stringy explanations.

However it seems that the French are more skeptical in addition to the statistics. Course, they do not contest the growth or the budget deficit: it is abstract and distant sizes. But they become skeptical, even suspicious figures affecting them closely. Two sets of indicators are experiencing a crisis of confidence: the index of prices and purchasing power, employment and unemployment. Sensing this floating, trade unions and opposition parties attacked these indices. Ségolène Royal, the candidate for the Socialist nomination, wants to reform the cost of living index. Bernard van Craynest, the pattern of the GSC, argued recently in "Les Echos" that there was "no improvement in the level of life despite the alleged rally".

With this confidence, there are often two types of reactions. The first is to deny the problem. The second is to develop technical arguments. Per capita purchasing power progresses less rapidly than the global purchasing power, as the number of heads is increasing. Rise of the "telecommunications" in the budget position limit other expenses. Employment is poorly measured in small businesses, there where it is probably quickly. Unemployed people are not counted as such. Price indices measure price... and not the cost of living. And they are lifting on lifting. In the Japan, the increase over one year of the index, just be consolidated, was reduced from 0.7 to 0.2. In the other direction, in the United States, a researcher at the Federal Reserve of Dallas, Jim Dolmas, has developed a new method to calculate the heart of the inflation, by removing all posts, and non-volatile index energy and fresh as it usually is. Result, in the United States, the "underlying" increase, as we say in France, would be 3.1 and -1.7 (figures from July to July). But these debates are nothing new. Statistics is a tool of delicate handling. And when they have the means, the statisticians spend their time to improve it.

This question reveals a much deeper movement: the increasing inability of the figures to testify to a more fragmented reality of a society increasingly atomized. The example of employment is probably the most illuminating. A generation ago it was white or black. Often light black to hundreds of thousands of unemployed, most between two positions. White for all those who were employed full-time with an indefinite term contract. Today, the work became a palette of grey also rich in nuances and a breton autumn sky. 4.3 million of assets work part-time. The NAE identifies 2.2 million unemployed seeking full-time employment, and also 1.4 million part-time job seekers (e.g. those working less that they would like). There are 1.7 million of assets under CSD, acting 660.000, 500,000 students. Four hires five are in precarious contract. There is near an active ten unemployment, more than one active on ten in precarious status. Everyone or nearly has his entourage an unemployed and workers in the uncertain professional future.

One rate cannot capture this diversity. "Halo of unemployment" detected by the Insee twenty years is extended to employment. This powerlessness is found on wages. Yesterday, the mass industry operated kicked of general increase. Today, the increases are increasingly more often individual, which corresponds to tasks they also increasingly more differentiated. Each its purchasing power! Same deflagration on prices. Types of consumption are more scattered, and the good old "occupations and socio-professional categories" of less enlightening. Hence the success of the "segmentations" of any kind, such as Acxiom Cabinet, which distinguishes between other "papys cottage", the "city campus" and the cosy boomers. " The price index is unable to show this scattering of ways of life.

The damage does not stop there. It becomes less and less relevant to reflect in averages. Need be recalled here that this mode of reasoning that seems natural to us is in fact recent It dates back to the 19th century with the Belgian Adolphe Quetelet measures, at the point where started the industrialization of mass (1). In a society increasingly more fragmented, the statisticians themselves know that it must refine their observations. They are working on "cohorts" (equal training, young people entered the labour market during the recession of 1993 have careers and wages less good than those who arrived three or four years later). They are studying "trajectories" kicked "longitudinal study." In a study published recently on the beginnings of professional career, ranging (Centre for studies and research on qualifications) conducted interviews with 60 youth instead of primarily myriads of data. Tomorrow, we will be perhaps not all of the Thomas doubting of each index. But, when the future explodes in thousand trails, averages mean nothing, figures can no longer grasp the reality. And our leaders must decide in the fog of an "uncertainty principle" economic and social.