Les raisons des différences de chômage entre Genève et le reste de la Suisse

The aim of this paper is to understand why the unemployment rate in Geneva is higher than in the rest of Switzerland. In order to explain the differences of cantonal unemployment rates, we use an approach based on the analysis of inflow and outflow rates into and from unemployment and the duration of individual unemployment spells among cantons. We first find that the high unemployment rate in Geneva is mainly due to a low outflow rate from unemployment. We next examine the effect of the characteristics of the unemployed population on the expected duration of their unemployment spells. Our results indicate that the unemployed persons in Geneva have very different individual characteristics than the unemployed population in the rest of Switzerland; these differences contribute to lengthen the duration of unemployment in Geneva. Thus, the high unemployment rate in Geneva is mainly due to the long duration of unemployment spells explained by the special characteristics of the pool of unemployed in this canton and by the fact that the impact of these unfavorable characteristics is even more negative in Geneva than in the rest of Switzerland.