It is eight o’clock in the morning, around twenty men and women are on deck in one of the five workshops of Esiam, the employment company in Mauléon, in Deux-Sèvres, where we recycles wood and glass in particular. Here, more than a third of employees have a disability, so each contract is on a fixed-term basis. Nathalie, 45, is leaning over a piece of glass. Without a license, it is above all a serious genetic disease, which prevents him from working full time. “I get tired more quickly than anyone else and so I do my best. But it would be nice if it lasted for a few more years,” she confides.
And if she is worried about the future of her job, it is because, for a month, the State has decided to lower its contribution to finance the jobs created by the experiment. “Territory of zero long-term unemployed”. Provided by law until 2026, it offers people far from employment a permanent contract at the minimum wage financed thanks to the RSA and Pôle emploi allowances.
Adilia Moret joined the Esiam sewing workshop in 2017 after more than twenty years of temporary work, a food industry factory… and unemployment. “At 40, I already felt incapable of working”, says Adilia. This is the whole advantage of the non-profit company, which allows everyone to return to work at their own pace. “It’s not that I didn’t want to workshe remembers. I don’t like to sit around doing nothing. But physically, in fact, I didn’t feel able to go back to work.”
“We look like we’re good for nothing, but it’s because we’ve been demolished. Frankly, today, I’m good. I still want to come and hire.”
Adilia Moretat franceinfo
Half of their company’s workforce will demonstrate this Tuesday, October 24 at 2 p.m. in Paris, in front of the National Assembly, to “the right to employment”. These employees are worried about the 7% drop in the State’s contribution to the salaries of these structures. This represents 80,000 euros of shortfall for Mauléon. “It will jeopardize new hiresadmits Christophe Boutin, director of the company. If we no longer have fuel for the vehicles for the people who were going to support the elderly, we will be less able to serve the territory. We are in a full employment zone in Mauléon. But what do we do with the 4.5% of unemployed?
:quality(50)/2023/10/24/bb491c7e-86d0-480f-b8b1-1acf16ec62cf-65377dbd515ba559731813.jpeg)
3,500 people left unemployed
And for the municipality, precisely, an employee on a permanent contract is also an employee who consumes, assures Mayor Pierre-Yves Marolleau. “I have people in Mauléon who were able to buy a small house. So they didn’t buy Versailles, that’s for sure, but they were able to get a loan for example.”, explains the elected official. Today in Mauléon, four people are waiting to be able to join the system. The city, which partly decides on hiring, is waiting “to come out of the fog” before giving them the green light.
Since 2017, more than 3,500 people have emerged from long-term unemployment thanks to this system, deployed in around sixty towns or neighborhoods. And if the overall envelope allocated to this project for 2024 – 69 million euros – is certainly increasing, it is considered insufficient by the actors of the system which would be worth at least 20 million euros more to support the experiment at National level.