at least 25% of eligible employees do not use compensation, according to a report by the Ministry of Labor

“Between 25% and 42%” of employees who could claim unemployment insurance do not use it, according to a report by the Directorate of Statistics of the Ministry of Labor (Dares), specifying that this “represents over one year between 390,000 and 690,000 non-recoverers”.

This report, consulted Monday, October 3 by AFP when the debates on the bill on unemployment insurance are opening in the Assembly, notes that this non-use “has been little studied” and remains a phenomenon “difficult to measure”. The study, revealed by the daily The echoesruns from November 2018 to October 2019, i.e. before the health crisis and the latest unemployment insurance reform.

According to the central hypothesis of the report, “about 30% of people aged 25 to 60 who experience the end of their contract in the private sector without being registered beforehand with Pôle Emploi and who meet the eligibility criteria do not use unemployment insurance”. The authors note that this proportion is “comparable” to that observed on other social benefits, citing the rates of “34% for the RSA” and “32% for pensions”.

Three specificities are nevertheless pointed out: employees on temporary contracts (temporary and fixed-term contracts) use “significantly less” to unemployment insurance than employees at the end of their permanent contracts. Non-Applicants have also worked for less time than Appellants, and their potential rights are therefore “weaker”. Finally, non-users find a job more quickly than users.

Regarding the grounds for non-appeal, the document advances “two large families of explanation” : the “lack of information” and the “failure to solicit”. In the first case, people may have doubts about their eligibility. In the second, it may be an unfavorable cost/benefit trade-off: “fear of stigmatization, administrative procedures, checks, etc.”.