Adding employment areas to Trendeo's investment observatory

The investment observatory lists investment and divestment announcements throughout France (overseas departments and territories will be included from January 2010). Until now, information was available by commune, département and region. We have now added the option of analyzing data by employment area (zones d'emplois as defined by INSEE), which will enable us to compare the attractiveness of different areas at relevant sizes, between the commune, which is too small, and the département. The employment zones divide the French territory into 364 economic activity areas that are homogeneous in terms of the number of people employed.since january 1st, the data collected has made it possible to identify the most active employment zones, in terms of both investment and disinvestment (by adding jobs created and jobs lost in absolute value). The results are highly contrasting: for the ten employment areas for which we recorded the most movements (see table below), Paris lost almost 15,500 jobs. Nanterre is in a much less negative situation, with job losses almost balanced by job creations. Saint-Denis achieved a very positive result, mainly thanks to the arrival of 3,200 BNP Paribas employees. Metz has been hard hit by the army restructuring plan, with over 4,500 net job losses announced (excluding defense jobs, Metz posted a positive balance of 200 job creations). To a lesser extent, Versailles is a victim of the same phenomenon, with almost 1,800 net job cuts planned as part of the new map of the Ministry of Defense's sites.Trendeo will publish a full analysis of 2009 in early January. All this data is immediately available to subscribers to the Investment Observatory.RankEmployment area Jobs created Jobs eliminated Net balance 1Paris1 02416 513- 15 4892Nanterre7 3768 218- 8423Lyon4 7474 3873604Toulouse3 2874 453- 1 1665Bordeaux-Zone-Centrale3 5193 567- 486Saint-Denis4 8901 9692 9217Metz7035 269- 4 5668Lille3 1661 9101 2569Nantes2 5232 4744910Versailles5123 949- 3437*INSEE's definition of employment zones:An employment zone is a geographical area within which most of the active population live and work. Conducted jointly by INSEE and the statistical services of the French Ministry of Labor, the division into employment zones constitutes a territorial partition adapted to local studies on employment and its environment. Commuting is the basic variable for determining this zoning. The division necessarily respects regional boundaries, and more often than not cantonal (and therefore departmental) boundaries. It was recommended not to create zones with less than 25,000 employees. This zoning is defined for both metropolitan France and the French overseas departments.