I was reading in last week's Economist's Special Report on France and the EU and was intrigued by the following quote on French employment:

France's private sector boasts some of the world's leading companies, in industries such as cars, handbags, shampoo, yoghurt and insurance. Yet these firms tend to manage by employing relatively few people. Jobs are so thickly protected that employers hesitate to create them. Many resort to temporary or short-term contracts, or to interns. The upshot is a two-tier labor market: sheltered jobs for those who have them, and precariousness or joblessness for the rest.

I wonder if this might be true after a fashion in the United States, not because of oppressive employment regulation but due to the skyrocketing cost of health insurance and, according to employers, the crushing responsibility of actually paying a living wage.