2024-04-18 11:01:41
The setbacks of the American Boeing are undoubtedly not entirely unrelated. French aeronautics, which collapsed during the Covid-19 crisis then was hampered by supply and recruitment difficulties, is recovering and could come to the aid of French growth.
The sector, a traditional strong point of the French economy, is continuing to catch up. The aeronautics industry should “regain a large part of the ground lost since 2019 in terms of activity and undoubtedly productivity”, estimates INSEE in its economic report for the month of March.
Progress of 10 to 15%
Production, which last year was still 25% lower than its 2019 level, is expected to increase by 10% this year and next. At the end of 2024, it will not yet have returned to its 2019 level. But thanks to the gradual return to a more usual pace of manufacturing, aircraft deliveries which, in value, were still behind schedule of 13% in 2023, will , they too, leave.
From this spring, foreign trade should benefit from the movement. While Airbus expects deliveries to increase by 9% this year, “French aeronautical exports could be slightly more dynamic,” estimates INSEE. According to the French Observatory of Economic Conditions (OFCE), aeronautical exports are expected to increase by 10% to 15% in 2024 and 2025.
Decline in productivity
Given the weight of the sector – it represented nearly 10% of total French exports in 2019, or around 3% of GDP – “this could have a positive effect on growth of 0.3 to 0.4 points in 2024 and in 2025,” calculated Elliot Aurissergues, economist at the OFCE. Precious tenths of a point of GDP when French growth is expected this year at 0.7% by the consensus of economists and at 1% by Bercy.
The recovery of the aeronautical industry should also have positive effects on productivity. Although slowing down, companies in the sector employed 7% more employees last year than before Covid-19, due to sustained hiring of executives and engineers. “Compared to pre-crisis, the loss of labor productivity observed in the sector therefore reaches more than 30%,” notes INSEE. This is a significantly more marked decline than in other industrial sectors.
This decline could nevertheless be temporary. Especially since Airbus opened a new assembly line last year in France for the manufacture of A320 type aircraft, the most numerous.
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