Why extend the current rules?
These rules, resulting from the controversial reform of 2019 but whose application was delayed until the fall of 2021 by the Covid and legal remedies, expire on November 1.
For lack of being able to launch in time the classic procedure to review the conditions of compensation (framework letter and negotiation of the social partners) because of the electoral context, the government is legislating with this text, which will be the first on the menu of the Parliament at the beginning october.
It will allow via a future decree to continue to apply the 2019 reform which in particular tightened the conditions of compensation for jobseekers, in particular those alternating periods of work and inactivity. The reform also introduced a "bonus-malus" in seven major consumer sectors of short contracts.
Unédic, which manages the unemployment insurance scheme, has not yet estimated the effect of these measures.
Why do you want to "go further"?
In the time offered by the extension of the current rules, the government intends to "go further".
The executive has set itself the objective of full employment (estimated at an unemployment rate of around 5% against 7,4% today) at the end of the five-year term. It starts from the postulate, rejected by the unions but supported by the employers, that part of the recruitment difficulties of companies could be linked to the conditions of unemployment compensation and intends to lead to rules "more encouraging to the resumption of employment ".
The idea is to modulate the conditions of unemployment insurance according to the situation of the labor market, like what is done for example in Canada. "When things are going well, we tighten the rules and, when things are going badly, we relax them", summed up the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt.
In the wake of the Council of Ministers, the government intends to approach the social partners with a request to negotiate an agreement on these modulation criteria (number of job seekers, job creations, etc.) which would then determine the conditions of compensation (opening, duration, degressivity, etc.).
"Depending on the time given and depending on their ability to find an agreement or not, we will issue a decree either to apply the agreement, or to note the deficiency and define the rules", indicated Mr. Dussopt, who wants an implementation. "before the end of the year".
Is an agreement of the social partners possible?
Even before being launched, the negotiation seems badly started because the two number one of each union and employer camp (the CFDT and the Medef) are unfavorable to it.
“Some people at the head of this country think that, because we will press on the head of the unemployed, we will solve the recruitment difficulties. All the studies show that the problem is training, the attractiveness of these professions and the location" of jobs, said Laurent Berger (CFDT). "I will not fall into this trap", "we will not write these rules", he warned.
If Cyril Chabanier (CFTC) considers it "complicated not to go at all" to negotiation, he doubts the concrete applicability of rules fluctuating with the economic situation, pointing in particular to the risk of being "out of time" in relation to the fast-moving economy.
For the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, "opening a negotiation will be useless since it will not succeed for lack of a diagnosis shared with the unions on the effect of the rules of compensation on the resumption of employment" .
This is not the position of the U2P (TPE) for which "directly handing over the keys to unemployment insurance to the State (...) would be likely to abandon a flagship mission of the social partners".
The file will not be closed with the modification of the compensation rules. The government intends to open another consultation within a few months on the governance of Unédic, the joint unemployment insurance scheme, which would be concomitant with the creation of France Travail (which is to succeed Pôle emploi) and the reform of the support of the RSA.