“It is no longer possible to have so much unemployment, around 7%, and positions that remain available for lack of candidates”: this is what Bruno Le Maire launched at the Economic Meetings which were held this weekend in Aix-en-Provence. It’s true that business leaders – from large groups to small businesses – have all complained of having difficulty recruiting, regardless of the sector: aeronautics, transport, tourism, etc. In the hotel and catering industry alone, for example, it is estimated that there are over 200,000 vacancies.
As a result, the government has promised to tackle the problem from the start of the school year, in particular by implementing the unemployment insurance reform very quickly. Remember, Emmanuel Macron had promised during his campaign to go a step further than what he had already done during the first five-year term. It would therefore be a question of accelerating and doing act two by tightening the rules of compensation for the unemployed a little more, the government hopes to encourage them to return to work more quickly. This reform could be done at the start of the school year, before that of pensions.
Yet the unions are against it: they all fought against the last reform. It is therefore unlikely that they will be much more favorable to the next one. It is a social risk that the government would take. On the other hand, in public opinion, it is different, the opposition is much less strong than against the pension reform.
In addition, Elisabeth Borne knows the unemployment insurance file well, as Minister of Labor, it was she who managed the last reform. And then there is a window of opportunity, the unemployment insurance convention ends on October 31. Finally, last argument, it would be a pledge sent to Brussels on the reforming capacity of France.
Emmanuel Macron also hopes to achieve full employment at the end of the five-year term. He is aiming for 5%. He is all the more keen on this because it is through full employment that he hopes to gain budgetary leeway, and finance investments in schools, ecological transition and health. With this creedwhich the government repeats like a mantra : when you work, you have better income and therefore it is also the best way to preserve purchasing power in times of inflation.