Créer des emplois publics crée-t-il des emplois ?

This article analyses the impact of public employment creation on private sector employment and unemployement. In a macroeconomic approach, the first section focuses on the crowding out effects of public jobs creation on private jobs creation. The effect is found to be large and significant by an empirical study of 17 OECD countries for the period 1960-2000: for 10 public jobs created, 15 private jobs are directly or indirectly lost. This study also shows that the impact of public employment creation strongly depends on the kind of public jobs created. Two characteristics are crucial : the degree of substitution between public and private sectors productions on the one hand and the magnitude of the advantages provided by public jobs. Retaining a microeconomic perspective, section two surveys empirical studies of subsidized employment policies. Conclusions are similar to the ones drawn from the macroeconomic analysis, namely the kind of jobs created is essential : subsidized jobs created in the private sector are often a first step towards a permanent job, especially for young and/or low skilled people. By contrast, subsidized jobs created in the public sector do not increase the probability to find a permanent job.