How many people work in French manufacturing?

2,831,500 salaried jobs at the end of 2025, excluding temporary agency staff, 20,200 fewer than a year earlier (INSEE quarterly employment estimates, seasonally adjusted, published 27 February 2026). Ésane counts 2,935,313 full-time equivalent employees in 266,068 manufacturing enterprises in 2023.

How much value added does French manufacturing produce?

EUR 299.3bn in 2025 at current prices (provisional), the sum of the five manufacturing branches in INSEE’s national accounts, or 11.2% of the value added of the whole economy by our calculation. Including extraction, energy and water, industry produced EUR 358.5bn.

How many French manufacturers use AI?

17% of manufacturers with 10 or more employees used at least one AI technology in 2025, against 7% in 2024 (INSEE Première n°2120). The 2025 survey asked a broader set of questions, so part of the rise is methodological.

What does electricity cost a French manufacturer?

Non-residential consumers paid EUR 0.1488 per kWh on average in 2025, excluding VAT, 16% below the EU average (SDES). ARENH ended on 31 December 2025; a plant’s price in 2026 depends on its own contract.

Home / Western European manufacturing in 2026: the data

Manufacturing data · France · INSEE and national sources, read 24 September 2026

France: the manufacturing data behind a 2026 plant decision

Value added flat, 20,200 fewer salaried jobs, 42% of manufacturers unable to produce more with what they have, and 37% short of recruits. What INSEE and the other French statistics say about a plant in 2026, with the release behind every figure.

In shortFrench manufacturing produced EUR 299.3bn of value added in 2025 at current prices, 11.2% of the value added of the whole economy (sum of the five manufacturing branches in INSEE’s national accounts, provisional; the share is our calculation). It had 2,831,500 salaried jobs at the end of 2025, 20,200 fewer than a year earlier. In July 2026, 82% of production capacity was in use, 42% of manufacturers said they could not produce more with their current resources if orders came in, and 37% reported difficulty recruiting. An hour of manufacturing labour cost about EUR 47.1 in 2025 and electricity for non-residential users averaged EUR 0.1488 per kWh.

Value added and employment

France manufacturing: value added by branch and salaried jobs
Indicator	2024	2025
Manufacturing gross value added, sum of branches C1-C5 (EUR bn, current prices)	298.4	299.3 (provisional)
of which food, beverages and tobacco (C1)	50.6	48.2
of which coke and refined petroleum (C2)	2.6	1.7
of which electrical, electronic and computer equipment, machinery (C3)	37.5	37.8
of which transport equipment (C4)	41.3	43.6
of which other manufacturing (C5: metals, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, wood, paper, textiles and more)	166.4	168.0
Share of the whole economy’s value added (our calculation)	11.4%	11.2%
Industry including extraction, energy and water (INSEE aggregate BE, EUR bn)	366.3	358.5
Salaried jobs in manufacturing at year end, excluding temporary agency staff (thousand)	2,851.7 (derived)	2,831.5

INSEE national accounts, base 2020, value added by branch at current prices (published 29 May 2026); 2024 semi-definitive, 2025 provisional. INSEE does not print manufacturing as one line: the total is our sum of its five manufacturing branches, and the share divides it by the economy total (EUR 2,624.9bn in 2024, EUR 2,664.9bn in 2025). Salaried jobs: INSEE quarterly estimates, seasonally adjusted, end of 2025 Q4 (published 27 February 2026); the end-2024 level is 2,831.5 plus the published fall of 20.2.

In volume, manufacturing output rose 1.2% in 2025 and its value added 0.6%, on a total output of EUR 981bn (INSEE, July 2026). Production in the fourth quarter of 2025 was 2.0% above the same quarter of 2024 (INSEE industrial production index). Nominal value added barely moved while the headcount fell: fewer people produced slightly more, which is what an output-per-hour problem looks like when it is being solved by attrition rather than by method.

Enterprises and where the value added sits

France manufacturing enterprises, 2023 (Ésane, enterprise basis)
Activity	Value added excl. taxes (EUR m)
Food and beverages	55,715
Transport equipment	49,926
Basic metals and metal products	29,914
Chemicals	27,983
Other manufacturing; repair and installation of machinery	24,813
All manufacturing: 266,068 enterprises, 2,935,313 full-time equivalent employees	302,634

INSEE Ésane 2023, all enterprise sizes, published 18 September 2025. Ésane measures enterprises, not the national-accounts branches above, so its total differs from the first table. Computer and electronic products, electrical equipment and machinery are three separate activities in this table (EUR 17.2bn, 11.5bn and 17.9bn); combined they would rank third, a sum that is ours. Textiles and tobacco are statistically confidential.

The average French manufacturing enterprise employs about 11 full-time equivalents (2,935,313 divided by 266,068, our calculation), and the sector invested EUR 51.9bn in tangible assets in 2023, led by food and beverages (EUR 9.9bn), transport equipment (EUR 7.4bn) and chemicals (EUR 5.9bn). The balance of factory openings and closures turned negative: 63 more closures than openings in 2025 after 15 in 2024, according to the private observatory Trendeo as reported by Banque des Territoires.

Capacity, bottlenecks and recruitment

INSEE quarterly business survey in manufacturing (% of firms, capacity in %)
Indicator	Long-term average	Oct 2025	Jan 2026	Apr 2026	Jul 2026
Capacity utilisation rate	83	82	80	81	82
Firms that could not produce more with current resources	25	37	33	44	42
Firms reporting recruitment difficulties	33	38	39	36	37

INSEE, Informations rapides n°179, published 23 July 2026. Job vacancy rate in industry and construction (NACE B-F) in France: 2.3% in 2026 Q2, 2.2% in Q1 (Eurostat euro indicators, 15 September 2026; not manufacturing only, and Eurostat flags French data as not strictly comparable).

The pattern is unusual. Capacity use sits just under its long-term average, yet 42% of manufacturers say they could not take more orders, against a long-term 25%. When the average line is not full but a large minority of firms are stuck, the constraint is specific: a bottleneck machine, a skill, a shift that cannot be staffed. That is the case in which recovering lost hours on the lines you already have is cheaper than any other capacity.

Labour and energy costs

An hour of manufacturing labour cost about EUR 47.1 in 2025 (Eurostat annual estimate, published by Destatis), against EUR 35.0 for the EU-27 (Eurostat lc_lci_lev). Non-residential electricity cost EUR 0.1488 per kWh on average in 2025, excluding VAT, 16% below the EU average (SDES, 23 July 2026). The regulated access to historic nuclear power (ARENH) ended on 31 December 2025; for 2026-2028 the energy regulator CRE put the full cost of nuclear generation at EUR 60.3 per MWh in 2026 euros, the reference for the new mechanism that taxes EDF’s nuclear revenue above set thresholds (CRE opinion of 16 December 2025 on the draft decree). What a given plant pays depends on its own contract.

AI and digital adoption

17% of French manufacturers with 10 or more employees used at least one AI technology in 2025, against 7% in 2024; across all sectors the figure was 18% (INSEE Première n°2120, 21 July 2026). The French figure is in line with EU-27 manufacturing (17.3% in 2025, Eurostat isoc_eb_ain2). The 2025 wave of the European survey asked a broader set of AI questions, so part of the jump is methodological: use 2025 to rank, not to measure growth.

What this means for a plant here

Find the hours before you hire. With 37% of manufacturers short of recruits and 42% unable to produce more, the cheapest capacity is the time already lost on existing lines: unrecorded stops, slow cycles, changeovers that overrun.
Price the idle hour. At EUR 47.1 an hour, twenty operators waiting for one eight-hour shift is about EUR 7,500 of direct labour. That is arithmetic on the published rate, before machine, order or penalty effects.
Labour, not energy, carries the value of an OEE point in France. On a reference two-shift line, one OEE point is worth EUR 12,436 a year at French costs, about nine euros in ten of it labour time.
Budget with the regime change in mind. Post-ARENH contracts differ widely; meter energy per part, not per month, so that the next contract negotiation starts from your own numbers.

DisclosureThis site is published by TEEPTRAK SAS, which sells production-monitoring and OEE software (450+ factories equipped in 30+ countries; offices in Paris, Chicago, Shenzhen and Bucharest). Read the figures above as data and this line as the interest behind them. For a French plant the honest order is: agree which losses you are trying to move, log stop causes by hand for a month, then decide whether a dedicated system, an MES module you already pay for, or a local integrator is the cheapest way to keep doing it.

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Questions

How many people work in French manufacturing?: 2,831,500 salaried jobs at the end of 2025, excluding temporary agency staff, 20,200 fewer than a year earlier (INSEE quarterly employment estimates, seasonally adjusted, published 27 February 2026). Ésane counts 2,935,313 full-time equivalent employees in 266,068 manufacturing enterprises in 2023.
How much value added does French manufacturing produce?: EUR 299.3bn in 2025 at current prices (provisional), the sum of the five manufacturing branches in INSEE’s national accounts, or 11.2% of the value added of the whole economy by our calculation. Including extraction, energy and water, industry produced EUR 358.5bn.
Are French factories running at full capacity?: Not on average: capacity utilisation was 82% in July 2026, just below its long-term average of 83%. But 42% of manufacturers said they could not produce more with their current resources if they received more orders, against a long-term average of 25% (INSEE business survey, July 2026).
How many French manufacturers use AI?: 17% of manufacturers with 10 or more employees used at least one AI technology in 2025, against 7% in 2024 (INSEE Première n°2120). The 2025 survey asked a broader set of questions, so part of the rise is methodological.
What does electricity cost a French manufacturer?: Non-residential consumers paid EUR 0.1488 per kWh on average in 2025, excluding VAT, 16% below the EU average (SDES). ARENH ended on 31 December 2025; a plant’s price in 2026 depends on its own contract.

Sources

Published by TEEPTRAK SAS, which makes production-monitoring and OEE software. Every figure is sourced on the page; totals and shares marked as ours are calculations on the published figures. Statistics are revised: check the official release before you budget or commit.