Unemployment insurance predicts record surpluses

2023-06-13 14:02:49

At Unédic, surpluses follow financial forecasts after financial forecasts, almost pinching. In its latest livery published on Tuesday, the joint association which manages the unemployment insurance scheme plans to generate a surplus of less than 18.5 billion euros over the years 2023 to 2025, a balance probably never known in its history !

On the one hand, the favorable dynamics of wages will go hand in hand with a marked increase in unemployment insurance contributions. As a result, revenue would stand at 46.6, 48.2 and 49.5 billion euros in 2023, 2024 and 2025 respectively. On the other hand, Unédic predicts that the scheme’s expenditure, benefiting both from the fall in unemployment and the effects of the reforms to the compensation rules, would remain well below (42.2 billion, 42.9 billion and 40.8 billion in each of these years).

Three years of surplus

Result, three years of surpluses which will even go crescendo to reach 8.7 billion under the calendar of the financial forecast. This is based on the consensus of economists in terms of GDP growth, and employment estimates which may seem cautious.

All of this, of course, only holds if the situation in the labor market does not experience a turnaround. The very good employment figures – 90,000 additional salaried positions in the first quarter according to INSEE – surprised almost all forecasters given the sluggish growth. For the president of France Industrie, employment has become the last adjustment variable for companies, a consequence – beneficial, he says – of the supply policy carried out since 2015.

Accelerate the plan’s deleveraging

So much the better for Unédic’s accounts. What to do with all that money? Unions and employers have the answer: accelerate the plan’s deleveraging, bringing it from 60.7 billion at the end of last year to 42.3 billion three years later. The government, for its part, does not rule out asking for an additional gesture to increase the contribution to the budget of France travail, the new public service for employment assistance which will be set up.

“This point will be on the agenda for the next negotiation of the State-Pôle Emploi-Unédic tripartite agreement”, acknowledged the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, in an interview with “Echos”.