Contracyclicality, a new bingo word for Scrabble players? This is the principle that must now govern unemployment insurance: tougher compensation rules when the labor market is doing well, more protective for employees when the situation is bad, as in Canada.
The Minister of Labor and Full Employment, Olivier Dussopt, must, in the morning, reveal to the social partners “the arbitrations selected” after a consultation started in October and the final vote on the Labor 2 law last week. What will these trade-offs be? “We are not going to compensate less, we are going to work on the duration of compensation”, maintaining “a floor”, confirmed Olivier Dussopt on Sunday during the Grand Rendez-vous Europe 1-CNews-“Les Échos”.
The government has also given up on a variation of the rules according to the local employment situation, which is too complex to implement. Intermittent performers or overseas will not be affected either.
The conditions of access to compensation, ie the fact of having worked six months over a reference period of 24 months, will also not be modified. The government “will not reduce the number of people eligible for the opening of rights to unemployment insurance”, assured the minister. “We will not touch the amounts of compensation, since at 57% of the last salary they are in the European average, it is only the duration of compensation that will vary,” reaffirmed the minister.
Recourse of the Nupes
Beyond a minimum of 6 months, the duration of compensation will therefore vary according to the unemployment rate. The criterion for assessing the labor market situation should be the development of the unemployment rate as defined by the International Labor Office.
Today, the duration of compensation is applied according to the principle of one day worked, one day compensated, with a maximum of 24 months for those under 53, 30 months for those aged 53-54 and 36 months for those aged 55. or more. Olivier Dussopt must announce this Monday the coefficient which will reduce the duration of compensation.
While many companies are unable to find candidates to fill vacant positions, the executive wants to make this reform the cornerstone of its strategy to achieve full employment in 2027, i.e. an unemployment rate of around 5%. The arbitrations announced in the morning should be the subject of a decree, unless Nupes’ appeal to the Constitutional Council removes this possibility from the government. “We are on the way to full employment”, encouraged the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, on France Info this Monday morning. “I see an incomprehensible situation in which you have, on the one hand, companies with labor shortages, in construction, hotels, restaurants, and on the other, rules that are not changing. The final objective is full employment,” insisted the minister, assuring that other axes supported this policy. “There is also work to be done on training and qualifications, on apprenticeship and vocational colleges, and all of these measures should lead us to full employment,” he said.
The reform should apply from 1 February next for all new unemployed and show its first effects from 1 August.