“We want to save money on the backs of job seekers,” denounces Force Ouvrière

“We want to save money on the backs of job seekers,” denounced Wednesday, May 22 on franceinfo Frédéric Souillot, secretary general of Force Ouvrière (FO), while the Minister of Labor Catherine Vautrin presented Wednesday and Thursday to the social partners the avenues of work to reform unemployment insurance. The government intends to tighten the conditions of access to unemployment compensation. The planned measures would allow 3.6 billion euros in savings, according to the executive, which hopes that, thanks to them, 90,000 additional people will be employed.

“I repeated to the Minister of Labor that being unemployed or on RSA is not a choice,” specifies Frédéric Souillot after his meeting with Catherine Vautrin. While Emmanuel Macron praised a reform which “will strengthen the effectiveness of our compensation system and work incentives”, the general secretary of FO retorts that “this is not the problem of resuming employment”.

According to him, in 2019, “there were 390,000” long-term job offers. “In 2024, there will be 416,000. And these 416,000 are not full-time jobs, they are part-time. And it would take almost two to achieve a 35-hour week.” Frédéric Souillot emphasizes that he warned the Minister of Labor if the government tightened the conditions of access to compensation. “I told her that if she issued a decree, we would attack her[er]before the Council of State.” He recalls that this is what FO did “on the previous reform”.

Frédéric Souillot insists that it is not necessary “to touch” during the work period to be compensated. He therefore opposes the“increase in working hours for the opening of rights”. According to an analysis requested by FO from Unedic, if the duration of the work period “had gone from 6 to 7 months, 11% of job seekers were impacted. And if we go to eight months, 15% of job seekers will be impacted”details Frédéric Souillot. “That is to say that 15% of job seekers will no longer receive compensation straight away or will have to wait to receive another one.”