In thirty-eight years of existence, Mickaël has never had a permanent job. As number of Guadeloupe, he is a “jobeur” and does odd jobs not declared. Until March, it reinforced the service of a very touristy bar on Grande Terre. Since then, the boss has never called him back, for lack of activity. As for Thérèse, a young single mother, she made a living from selling sorbets outside a posh hotel. She hasn’t earned a penny for months either.
Neither of them having ever been declared, they cannot benefit from unemployment benefits and henceforth rely on social minima, like (very) many other Antilleans. Since July, Guadeloupe has recorded more than 1,000 additional subscribers per month to the RSA, a jump of 50% in one year.
“The informal economy, even if it is not quantifiable, supports thousands of households in the Antilles” , analysis Olivier Sudrie, economist specializing in overseas territories. However, odd jobs have become scarce due to successive confinements and the cessation of tourism, plunging families into worrying precariousness. Already in 2017, a third of Martinican and Guadeloupe lived below the national poverty line, set at € 1,010 per month for a single person.
“The pressure cooker whistles”
“It’s getting worse. We can feel it particularly in terms of the use of food aid ”, notes the Martinican deputy Manuéla Kéclard-Mondésir. “The impact is considerable, from the job seeker to the employee. “ In addition to the “jobeurs”, many self-employed people and very small family businesses have had to shut down. The only people spared were civil servants and employees in the tertiary sector whose activity was able to continue. Enough to widen existing inequalities.
If the social tension remains silent, “The pressure cooker whistles” , from the expression of an elected official. The evolution of unemployment is scrutinized with anxiety, the figures being already much higher than that of France: 15% in Martinique, 21% in Guadeloupe at the end of 2019, against 7.9% in metropolitan France according to INSEE. Overseas are the focus of the concerns of the Inequalities Observatory. In its report of November 26, it places them at the head of the poorest territories.
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