Worker co-operatives in France continue to grow, reporting a 7.6% increase in the number of jobs provided. In 2017, the sector had 3,177 worker co-operatives with a turnover of €5bn.
Over 4,000 new jobs were created by worker (Scop) and multi stakeholder (Scic) co-ops in 2017. Around 2,400 of these arose from co-ops expanding their activities, while an additional 1,600 jobs were generated by newly set up co-ops. Employment created by worker co-ops has increased by 19% since 2008.
“Co-operative societies continue to grow and develop. The movement welcomes the results obtained in 2017: 300 co-operative societies have been set up and these worker and multi stakeholder production co-ops have generated more than 4,000 additional jobs,” said Jacques Landriot, president of the Les Scop, General Confederation of Scop, the French worker co-op confederation.
At the end of 2017 France had 3,177 worker co-ops, 5% more than in 2016. Of the 300 newly set-up co-ops, 156 were worker co-ops and 134 were multi-stakeholder co-ops. In both enterprises employees own at least 51% of the business. Multi-stakeholder co-ops are owned by workers, as well as other stakeholders, such as member clients or providers.
Around 200 of the co-ops set up were new enterprises, which generated 21% of jobs. An additional 55 co-ops were created by employees taking over healthy enterprises, generating 42% of the 660 jobs created overall. Another 31 jobs were created through the conversion of associations or other type of co-ops into employee owned businesses and 19 jobs were created when employees took over enterprises with financial difficulties.
There were 741 multi stakeholder co-ops across the country in 2017, 15,6% more than in 2016. Their workforce amounts to almost 7,000 employees.
Worker and multi-stakeholder co-ops also have a high survival rate, with 67% of co-ops making it past their first five years of activity. In contrast, the national average for enterprises that are not co-ops stands at 60%. According to Les Scop, two out of three employee owned co-ops created between 2012 and 2017 were still active at the end of 2017.
The service sector remains the most dynamic, with 40% of jobs being generated by co-ops active in this field. In terms of turnover, industrial, construction and service co-ops account for 82% of the movement’s total turnover. Co-ops in energy and environment and retail co-ops also saw their turnover grow by 16.4%, and, respectively, 11.6%.
The co-operative sector plays a key role in France, counting on 23,000 enterprises employing one million people. These have a joint turnover of €320bn.
