Posted Dec 22 2022 at 04:16 PMUpdated 22 Dec. 2022 at 17:59
“When things are going well, we tighten the rules, and when things are going badly, we relax them. The Minister of Labour, Olivier Dussopt, summed up the new unemployment insurance reform with this formula, which will lead to a 25% reduction in the maximum duration of compensation for all employees who register as unemployed from 1is next February. If he defended his philosophy tooth and nail against the hostility of the unions, the government gave no indication of the consequences of this reform for the unemployed.
After a first note on the legal and practical questions raised, in October, the first evaluation that Unédic has just made by comparing the compensation trajectories of beneficiaries observed from 2015 to 2019 with those they would have had with the reform of 2023 is all the more interesting. Because “a significant part [des allocataires] consume more than 75% of their rights”, the 25% reduction in the maximum duration of compensation, if it had already been applied, would have affected “nearly half of them”, calculated the joint body .
Impact of the so-called Pénicaud reform
This figure has two major limits, points out Unédic: the failure to take into account the impact that a lasting fall in the unemployment rate would have, coupled with an acceleration of the resumption of employment in the event of the advancement of the end of compensation. These are precisely the two key arguments of the government to justify its reform. But these effects will have to be powerful to significantly reduce the mass of potentially penalized unemployed.
If we are still to draw conjectures concerning the reform of unemployment insurance to come, Unédic also provides a first assessment of the impact of the so-called Pénicaud reform, rich in lessons. This study is based on June 2022 data from Pôle emploi, with a decline of nine months on the new formula for calculating the allowance, and seven months on the increase from four to six months of the minimum working time for open rights.
Barely more than one in three unemployed people receiving benefits
The first observation is that this reform, which came into force between 2021 and 2022, has increased the number of unemployed people without benefits. The proportion of category A, B or C unemployed people with rights to compensation fell by 2 points compared to the start of 2019, to 57.1%, calculated the joint body, which notes that the drop was greater for women and young people, especially the less educated. As for the proportion of unemployed actually receiving benefits, which has long remained above 40%, it has fallen to 36.6%.
Finally, the amount of the benefit received has decreased for half of the new unemployed people receiving benefits, due to the reform of the method of calculation. This reform provides that in the event of discontinuous periods of work, the calculation of the daily reference wage (SJR) which serves as the basis for the allowance, is reduced in order to penalize “permittence” (succession of periods worked and unemployed). On the other hand, the duration of compensation is getting longer.
16% decrease in allocation
Result: “The beneficiaries affected by the 2021 reform have on average an SJR lower by 22% and a daily allowance lower by 16% compared to what they would have received with the old rules”, notes Unédic. This confirms the impact study it carried out in April 2021. A downward effect which should increase because, for the moment, it is still “slightly” neutralized by the protective measures taken during the Covid crisis.
According to Unédic’s calculations, 30% of new recipients have a benefit that is more than 10% lower than what they would have received under the old rules. And this decline has affected many low-paid workers, which has led to an increase in the number of job seekers covered by unemployment insurance safety nets.
A “ransack” according to the CGT
In the first half of 2022, 40% of beneficiaries opened a right with an initial daily allowance lower than the minimum allowance of 29.60 euros per day. They were 27% in 2019. Some 11% of recipients even opened a right with a daily allowance lower than the basic RSA, i.e. 19 euros per day, compared to 7% in 2019. In view of this assessment, the CGT castigates the reform of unemployment insurance of 2021, calling it a “trail before the next one”.
The Unédic note confirms the counterpart to these restrictions on compensation put forward in 2019 by the government, namely the observed extension of the maximum duration of compensation. But the advantage will at least be dulled, since it is precisely this parameter that the new reform is attacking.