Job Applications at End of Month (Demandes d'emploi en fin de mois - DEFM).
Unemployment:
Unemployment:
The Regional Service of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Service régional de l'Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques - INSEE) is responsible for the statistical processing and publication of the data. These are obtained from the records of the National Employment Agency (Agence nationale pour l'Emploi - ANPE), which collects information on job applications.
The DEFM series covers the whole Department of Martinique, through four employment offices of the Agency. It covers all persons aged 16 years or over residing within the department, who register at the Agency and who meet the definition given below.
The series is monthly and has been available since 1982.
Unemployment: Persons considered as unemployed are those without a job who are immediately available, who are seeking full-time employment (of more than 30 hours of work a week) of an indefinite duration and who are registered at the National Employment Agency.
More specifically, the following are classified among unemployed persons in so far as they satisfy the criteria of the definition: first jobseekers and re-entrants to the workforce; persons seeking a post as trainee in an enterprise; and employable disabled persons. Persons receiving retirement pensions or invalidity benefits may, in principle, be counted as registered unemployed, although this rarely occurs owing to the fairly restrictive conditions imposed as regards income levels. Jobseekers with short-term employment (less than eight hours a week) continue to be registered as unemployed during this period. Responsibility for the loss of the last job does not affect classification as an unemployed person.
The following are not considered to be unemployed: students seeking work during vacations; persons laid off; persons with some form of minimal employment of more than eight hours a week (all these persons are classified as jobseekers and not as unemployed in the statistics of the INSEE Regional Service). Also excluded from the statistics are persons over 60 years of age benefiting from the system of guaranteed income and persons on strike.
Registration: Registration at the Agency is voluntary, however receipt of unemployment benefit, which is dependent on registration, is a strong incentive to register as a jobseeker. Register maintenance is carried out monthly by mail. Towards the 25th of the month, jobseekers receive an updating card which must be returned to the local employment agency with an indication of any change in their status as jobseekers. This system of updating by mail has gradually replaced the system requiring jobseekers to report personally to the employment office. There is no automatic follow-up procedure. Jobseekers may be requested to report to the Agency and if they receive benefits, may also be requested to report to the Departmental Directorate of Labour and Employment (Direction départementale du travail et de l'emploi), which is in charge of the job seeking process.
Deletion from the register: Deleted from the unemployment register and consequently excluded from the unemployment statistics are: jobseekers temporarily unable to work owing to illness or accident where the Agency has been notified of the interruption and it lasts for more than 15 days. (These jobseekers are only temporarily deleted from the register.) However, if the temporary unavailability for work is due to leave, vacations or removals, authorisation of absence is usually granted by the Agency and the jobseekers continue to be counted as unemployed.
Also deleted from the register of unemployed are jobseekers who refuse to fulfil the register maintenance requirements and those who fail to respond to a request to report to the Agency; persons who systematically reject several job offers for no valid reason; jobseekers who commit fraud or make false statements, and those who do not take active steps to find work.
Jobseekers who participate in State-assisted training/readaptation schemes, such as community-related work programmes (Travaux d'utilité collective - TUC); sandwich training, training programmes for persons 16 to 25 years of age, training periods for the long-term unemployed, and participants in job creation measures, such as assistance to unemployed persons in setting up a business; as well as jobseekers who systematically or excessively reject offers to participate in such schemes and measures are likewise deleted from the register of unemployed. Unemployed persons over 55 years of age in receipt of benefit may, at their request, be exempted from seeking work while continuing to receive unemployment benefit up until they obtain a retirement pension and may therefore be deleted from the register and excluded from the unemployment statistics.
The reference period for the count of the unemployed is the last day of the month. Up to September 1986 the updating cards were processed between the 3rd and the 6th of the following month. Job applications that had not been received or had not been processed by then were not included in the statistics. From October 1986 onwards the statistical processing has been postponed for about ten days so that most of the entries and exits at the end of the month are taken into account.
The unemployment data are compiled by the Regional Service of INSEE which processes the computer records on job applications transmitted monthly by the Agency. Changes in the category of jobseekers are taken into account immediately; differences arising from the updating of the monthly records are adjusted the following month. The accounting equation of flows and stocks is checked each month.
Unemployment rates are not calculated form this series.
In view of the central processing by computer of the DEFM series which began on 1 January 1987, a break has occurred in the series. The 1987 figures provided are no longer comparable with those for previous months.
Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE), Service inter-régional Antilles-Guyane, Service régional de la Martinique: "Bulletin statistique de la Martinique" (quarterly) (Fort-de-France, 1987). Each issue presents data for the previous quarter.
Methodological publications:
INSEE, Service inter-régional Antilles-Guyane: "Les dossiers Antilles-Guyane, Données sociales, no 11" (Pointe-à-Pitre, 1986).