This is what emerges from the latest report from the Institut Montaigne. This liberal think tank conducted the investigation and quantified the overall cost of these employees kept in their jobs without real work.
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Being “closed” is a taboo subject with good reason. Being paid to do nothing, often to encourage discouragement and departure: this situation has no official existence. This assessment of 200,000 people concerned today in France is based on a survey by the Kantar Institute on work in the 21st century and taken up in a report on the employment of seniors by the Montaigne Institute. It concerns the administration but also public and private companies.
The authors of the Institut Montaigne report set five major criteria: the absence of meaning in the tasks that are performed; the withdrawal from the work collective and the lack of involvement of the person concerned in the life of this collective; lack of interest in the rare tasks requested; an extremely low or non-existent workload; an absence of follow-up by the direct hierarchy of the work carried out and of regular contact. This is contrary to the Labor Code and can be considered moral harassment.
According to the study, this state of affairs now concerns around 1% of employees in France, with women being more affected than men. According to the study, placarding costs the equivalent of ten billion euros per year. This includes wages paid, with the sole objective of maintaining employment even if it is interest-free, but above all social security coverage. Placarding has significant psychological consequences that require medical monitoring covered by health insurance. Psychological disorders are now the second cause of sick leave in France, and the phenomenon continues to increase.
The Montaigne Institute recommends first of all a complete and official inventory of placarding in France. An analysis that would associate DRH (human resources departments), trade unions and occupational physicians. It also suggests an end-of-career arrangement with a gradual reduction in working time and remuneration, or even a series of measures with a compensation for dismissal negotiated upstream, which already exists in the construction sector. A gently sloping exit that does not neglect any of the human and financial factors.