While the government is preparing public opinion for a new unemployment insurance reform, the effects of the previous ones are starting to become better known. The Directorate for the Animation of Research, Studies and Statistics, attached to the Ministry of Labor, published, Tuesday February 27, an interim report produced by its evaluation committee of the unemployment insurance reform launched in 2019 and which had tightened the rules for compensation for job seekers.
The publication of this work comes at a time when a new tightening of the screw for the unemployed – this would be the fifth since 2017 – is in the executive’s pipeline. In The Sunday Journal of February 25, the Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, announced that the duration of compensation “can still” be reduced and it is also possible to“increase the degression of allocations”. If the arbitrations are not stopped, the tenant of Matignon confirmed his determination on RTL, Tuesday February 27. “Working must always yield more than not working,” affirmed the head of government, who wishes that we “reopen the construction site” unemployment insurance to have “a social model that encourages more activity”.
The government’s desire to once again tighten compensation rules aims to respond to the downturn in the job market observed recently. While the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, had made full employment – around 5% unemployment – the major objective of his second five-year term, the possibility of keeping this promise is disappearing.
After several years of continuous decline in unemployment, it has been increasing for several months, going from 7.1% at the end of 2022 to 7.5% in the last quarter of 2023. The latest unemployment insurance reform implemented place in February 2023 and which reduced the duration of compensation by 25%, however, had the objective of making the rules more incentive when the economic situation is favorable and more protective when the situation deteriorates.
Decrease in the number of rights granted
Changes follow one another so quickly that new rules are put in place, without the effects of the previous ones even being known. The report published Tuesday partly addresses this deficiency. This work focuses on the consequences of the unemployment insurance reform decided in 2019 and implemented in stages until the end of 2021, in particular due to the health crisis. The various decrees taken by the government have resulted in tougher compensation conditions.
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