The development of non-food e-commerce has destroyed 85,000 jobs in ten years in France, according to a study by the NGO Friends of the Earth. It also threatens nature with its “warehouses bigger than the big shopping malls”.
Just 3,800 jobs were lost in 2019, the latest year for which data is available. “This is the largest social plan currently underway in France”, denounces Friends of the Earth, which took over the methodology of the firm Kavala Capital to update the previous study covering the period 2009-2018.
Small physical businesses very affected
According to the NGO, 122,400 jobs have been directly destroyed in ten years in the retail trade with the development of online sales. The wholesale trade has limited the breakage. Very small retail businesses (7,600 jobs lost) and the clothing sector (4,800) are paying a heavy price.
“Until then, the ‘digitalization’ of major physical retail brands generated job creation,” analyzes Etienne Coubard, spokesperson for Friends of the Earth. “Now that their online business is developed, these brands are closing their stores and laying off their employees to face competition. »
The uberization of employment in the crosshairs
The NGO is also concerned about the effect of Covid-19, when the data for the years 2020 and 2021 will be available, and a spread of social damage to the food trade with the rise of online grocery stores. “Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term has resulted in incomprehensible choices”, judge Etienne Coubard. “Tax giveaways, administrative and political support have enabled massive and rapid implementation. Yet e-commerce is destroying jobs at high speed. »
“The government favors uberisation, short contracts and temporary work”, concludes the NGO. “In the midst of a purchasing power crisis, in addition to destroying jobs, online sales create precarious jobs below the poverty line. The Friends of the Earth criticize in passing the proliferation of logistics sites, which “concrete the fields” for the creation of huge warehouses.
Source: 20minutes
