France: volunteer and paid workforce

Employment

The non profit sector employed 2 million people in 2006. [12] This accounted for 9.8 percent of all employment in France that year. [3] Associations retained 1,780,000 employees, cooperatives retained 900,000 employees, health mutual societies retained 55,000 employees and insurance mutual societies retained 33 000 employees. [12]

The third sector was a described as being a leading employer of women. In fact, 70 percent of all jobs in the third sector were held by women, compared to 45 percent in the rest of the economy. [3]

Employment in the third sector is concentrated to a hand full of large organizations. Over half of all non profit organizations in France reported only employing one or two people and the 3,000 large organizations with more than 100 employees were responsible for employing over a third of the 2 million people employed by the sector. [3]

Volunteering

In 2007 it was estimated that 18 million French citizens were actively volunteering in France. Their work amounted to that of about 935,000 full time employees. Seventy-six percent of those people were working with organizations that did not have any paid staff. On average volunteer organizations employed 15 volunteers and organizations with paid staff members employed about 22 volunteers. [1]

Humanitarian organizations boasted the highest numbers of volunteers. Volunteer organizations averaged 23 volunteers and organizations which also employed staff averaged 75 volunteers.[1]