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Fragmented stability: the prevalence of re-employment and fixed-term contracts in France

Olivier Charlot, Eloïse Ménestrier, Franck Malherbet
March 2025
This paper highlights how rehiring and the prevalence of fixed-term contracts give rise to a particular dynamic which the authors describe as ‘fragmented stability’.
Reference IPP Policy Brief No. 113

Quote this publication

Charlot, Olivier, Malherbet, Franck, Ménestrier, Eloïse (2025). ‘Fragmented stability: the recurrence of re-employment and fixed-term contracts in France’, IPP Policy Brief, No. 113. Institut des politiques publiques (IPP).
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Presentation

Following a separation, a significant proportion of workers end up being rehired by their former employer. Rehiring thus refers to the process by which an employee, who was previously dismissed or placed on temporary unemployment, returns to their post with the same employer.

Studies on this phenomenon remain rare in European labour markets.

Many European labour markets are characterised by marked contractual dualism. This phenomenon refers to the coexistence of two distinct employment contract regimes: on the one hand, stable and protected contracts, generally of indefinite duration (CDI), and on the other hand, precarious and flexible contracts, often of fixed duration (CDD), thereby creating significant inequalities in terms of rights and security amongst workers. The aim of this study is to shed light on the phenomenon of re-employment within the specific context of a dual labour market, in this case the French labour market.

Key Results

This paper highlights how re-hiring and the prevalence of fixed-term contracts give rise to a particular dynamic which the authors describe as ‘fragmented stability’. This fragmentation combines a long-term relationship between the firm and its employees with a pattern of alternating very short contracts and periods of unemployment.

  • Re-hires accounted for around 44 per cent of all new hires in France between 2012 and 2019.
  • Re-hiring and contractual dualism are closely linked: nearly 93 per cent involve short-term fixed-term contracts, often lasting less than a month.
  • Re-hiring is widespread across all sectors, not just those where the use of fixed-term contracts is less strictly regulated.
  • More than a third of re-hires could contravene the mandatory cooling-off period, and nearly half could exceed the legal limit on renewals.
  • Re-hiring affects a relatively small group of workers, just over a quarter of whom are re-hired five or more times by the same employer each year. It is also more common among women and older workers.
  • Re-hiring is driven by the volatile but recurring needs of firms, stemming from characteristics intrinsic to each individual firm rather than to their sector.
  • Re-hiring in a dual labour market creates fragmented stability — a mix of stable employment relationships through recurrent re-hiring and short periods of employment that exacerbate job fragmentation and labour market segmentation.

Reference study

Olivier Charlot, Franck Malherbet, and Eloïse Menestrier. Fragmented Stability: Recalls and Fixed-Term Contracts in the French Labour Market. IZA Discussion Paper No. 17486, November 2024.

Method and Data

Data

This study draws on a unique set of administrative data: the Pre-Employment Declarations (DPAE), covering the period from 2012 to 2019 and the private sector, excluding agriculture and temporary work. These mandatory declarations, which employers must submit to the authorities before taking on an employee, provide detailed information on the new employee, the nature of their employment contract, the scheduled start date of the contract and, where applicable, its exact duration. The DPAEs thus make it possible to track recruitment and re-employment trends over a given period.

However, this data has a significant limitation: it provides little information on the characteristics of workers, being restricted mainly to their age and gender. In particular, it contains no details regarding their level of education, qualifications or professional experience.

Measuring and defining re-hires

As in most of the literature, the authors focus on rehiring by the most recent employer. Their analysis is based on an actual measure of re-employment, drawn from a comprehensive survey of employment contracts in France, unlike studies based on workers’ expectations of being recalled at the time of Dismissal (see, for example, Katz and Meyer, 1990).

Thus, the authors use an ex-post measure rather than an ex-ante measure based on workers’ expectations. The latter may not materialise, whilst some workers who state that they do not expect to be rehired sometimes end up being rehired. Consequently, the ex-post measure appears to be much more accurate. Furthermore, the comprehensive nature of the administrative data gives this study sufficient statistical power to characterise re-employment in greater detail than in most existing studies.

Partners

Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR)

This paper was supported by the Investments for the Future programme (ANR-11-IDEX-0003/Labex Ecodec/ANR-11-LABX-0047).

Last modified: July 21, 2026