In the last decade, the economy of the French region Midi-Pyrénées has known a general increase.
Midi-Pyrénées is the largest region of France. In 2006, its total GDP was 87,915 billion $ for a population of 2.755.000 people.
Because of its size Midi-Pyrénées has the largest number of farms of all France with 60,000 farms in active use. It has also the largest amount of land readily usable with 2.6 million hectares. The departments of the Gers, Aveyron, Lot and Tarn-et-Garonne have the most significant agricultural activity of the region. Wine production has suffered in recent years from declining demand, reducing prices and over-production. There are 19 AOC wines in the region. A policy of merging producers into wider groups has been initiated.
The second largest part of the industrial production of the region is the food industry. 4.6bn Euros are generated each year. Excluding the construction and civil engineering field the secondary sector uses 15% of the regional resources. There are several groups who have important offices and structures in the region like: Airbus, EADS, Alcatel, Siemens, Bosch and Pierre Fabre. Aerospace industry is an important source of income for the region and employs 57,000 people not to mention all the surrounding companies (more than 3,000) which work on the engineering, electronic, telecommunication and computing infrastructure for this industry. However there is a large restructuring plan ongoing and about 10,000 new jobs are expected to be lost.
The region has been tailing some other French regions for a long time in the services sector. However this has changed a lot in the recent years and there are many important consulting and telemarketing companies based in the area or with important offices, such as France Telecom, IBM and CapGemini. With 80,000 students and 15,000 scientists divided into 400 laboratories the region ranks in France's top three for scientific research. Technology transfers to small-business-companies is therefore substantial. Tourism is an important source of incomes for the region, partly due to a sunny climate and the presence of the Pyrénées. It is well known for its gastronomy and quality of life. Aside of casual tourism the small town of Lourdes, because of religious pilgrimage, is France's second largest tourist destination after Paris and has more hotels than any other city but Paris.
Nevertheless some branches of the regions economy (such as industry, property building or tourism) have had problems with providing new jobs or even with keeping pre-existing employment.
But as a whole, the general economic trend of the Midi-Pyrénées region is quite similar to the economic situation of France.
Midi-Pyrénées has an unemployment rate of 7.2%.
This region also offers financial and physical support for people in need such as elderly people, disabled people, unemployed people...