Identifying and characterizing business and acceleration cycles of French jobseekers Identifying and characterizing business and acceleration cycles of French jobseekers

This paper examines the French jobseeker cycles from January 1997 to March 2015. First, we propose monthly turning point chronologies for the French jobseeker business and acceleration cycles through the non-parametric dating algorithm proposed by Bry and Boschan (1971) and the dating strategy suggested by Proietti (2005). Second, we analyze the main characteristics of these cycles, namely length, depth and shape, that are approximated by their measures of duration, amplitude, and excess, respectively. The chronologies indicate that the jobseekers series is currently in a long expansion phase of the business cycle since February 2008, and in a slowdown phase of the acceleration cycle since September 2014. We observe evidence of asymmetries across the phases of the business cycle in terms of duration and amplitude whereas these measures are rather symmetric for the phases of the acceleration cycle.