The government wishes to modulate the conditions of unemployment insurance according to the situation of the labor market, like what is done, for example, in Canada.
Le Monde with AFP
The executive wants to change unemployment compensation rules again. The government gives, Wednesday, September 7 in the Council of Ministers, the kick -off of a new reform aimed at responding to recruitment difficulties by varying the conditions of compensation of the unemployed according to the economic situation, an idea categorically rejected by the unions .
First social reform of the second five-year term, this bill paradoxically targets the current rules of unemployment insurance. Coming from an already controversial reform of the first five-year term, they expire on October 31.
It is a question of avoiding any legal vacuum for compensation of approximately 2.5 million job seekers and the application of “bonus-malus” on the contributions of certain companies which strongly use contracts short.
modulation of allowances
More than the content of the text, which will be debated from the start of the October school year in October, it is the sequence that he starts which is debate.
The executive wishes to adjust the conditions of unemployment insurance according to the situation of the labor market, like what is done in Canada, for example. For this, the government will seize the social partners of a request to negotiate a modulation of unemployment insurance compensation so that it is, in the words of Emmanuel Macron, “more strict when too many jobs are not filled, more generous when unemployment is high “.
He will then return to trade union and employer organizations to open or not to negotiate to agree on criteria – the unemployment rate, for example -, whose upward or downward development could determine The number of months of work required to access compensation (six months currently over the last twenty-four) or the duration of it.
The executive hammers, like the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, that there is an emergency because it is “unbearable to be still at an unemployment rate of 7.4 % and At the same time have a unanimous return of business leaders on recruitment difficulties “. He makes this reform one of the conditions to achieve the goal of full employment (unemployment of approximately 5 %) in 2027.
According to the economist and Renaissance deputy (ex-Republic on the move) Marc Ferracci, one of the inspiors of the 2019 reform, “dozens of studies prove that the rules of unemployment insurance, in particular the duration And the eligibility thresholds, have an effect on the level of employment “, especially for the most autonomous unemployed in their research.
False, retort the unions, for whom recruitment difficulties are first linked to the training and attractiveness of trades (wages, working conditions, mobility, etc.).
A “Contractcyclical” measure
Meeting on Monday at the CFDT headquarters, the unions agreed with their opposition to negotiate such a “contractcyclic” measure. They should publish a common text next week in this sense.
He will focus “on the current problem of employment and recruitment difficulties that will not find an effective response with a reform that further reduces the rights of the unemployed,” said Marylise Léon (CFDT).
“We want to negotiate a new unemployment insurance agreement, but on condition that we are left hands”, adds Michel Beaugas (FO). “The reality is that the executive gives wages to the Medef, which therefore has no interest in negotiating with the unions”, deplores François Manril (CFE-CGC).
In fact, the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, has already judged that “opening a negotiation will be useless, since it will not succeed in lack of diagnosis shared with the unions”.
So mass seems to be said. Without agreement, the government will only define the rules by decree. He wishes an implementation “before the end of the year”, according to Mr. Dussopt.
The government intends to open another consultation on the governance of Unédic, the joint unemployment insurance plan, in connection with the reform of active solidarity income (RSA (RSA ) and the creation of France Work, which must succeed Pôle Emploi and better coordinate the actors working on employment.