The executive believes that the current rules for unemployment compensation are still too generous and do not encourage people to return to work. Also, he intends to go further than the 2019 reform, which had already tightened the conditions for compensation, against the unanimous opinion of the unions.
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This is one of the most divisive bills of the coming months for the executive: the unemployment insurance bill for “improve the functioning of the labor market” is presented Wednesday, September 7 in the Council of Ministers. The text, minimalist, is presented as a “first stage” to ease recruitment difficulties for businesses and achieve full employment by the end of the five-year term. In the line of fire, unemployment insurance, which the government wants to continue to transform.
>> Employment: how the government wants to reform unemployment insurance
The bill extends the current unemployment insurance rules until the end of 2023 and paves the way for further reform. The government wants to go further than the 2019 reform which has already tightened the conditions for unemployment benefits, against the unanimous opinion of the unions. It is now intended to modulate these conditions according to the economic situation. With the principle: “When things are going well, we tighten the rules, when things are going badly, we relax them.” The executive is convinced that the current rules remain too generous, that they do not encourage a return to work. “It’s unbearable, said the Minister of Labour, to still have a 7% unemployment rate and bosses who are unable to recruit.”
The Minister of Labor indicates that he does not want to directly affect the amount of the allowance, so the lines of thought are rather aimed at the duration of compensation. And the conditions of access to unemployment insurance. Today, for example, it is necessary to have worked ten months out of the last 24 months to open rights. These last 24 months could be modulated upwards or downwards, depending on the situation on the labor market, like what is happening in Canada.
The government will very quickly invite the unions and the employers to take up the subject, not within the framework of a negotiation, but of a simple consultation. It is therefore the government that will have the last word. And it looks complicated: the unions denounce a dogmatic reform. Reducing the rights of the unemployed is a little more precarious, they say, and this will not make it possible to achieve full employment.