June 20, 2017
Apparently the dislike at the NYT is so intense that they couldn’t restrict it to the opinion pages. In an article on French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans for changing France’s labor market regulations, it referred to the current labor law as the, “rigid and job-killing labor code.”
It is not at all clear that France’s labor protections have a major impact on unemployment in the country. A cross-country analysis found no effect of employment regulations on unemployment. The more obvious cause of high French unemployment is the lack of demand in the economy which results from both Germany’s large trade surplus and its insistence on imposing austerity on France and other euro zone countries. The piece forgot to mention this major aspect of economic policy.
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