Geoffrey Branger / Photo credits: MAGALI COHEN / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP
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06:51, April 4, 2024
The government is planning a reform of unemployment insurance, with one main point: changing the rules for receiving unemployment compensation, both in terms of amount and duration. A duration which is today the same for everyone and regardless of seniority. Many active people deplore and believe that the operation is unfair. Others remain mixed.
The government plans to reduce the duration of unemployment compensation by several months, currently 18 months for those under 53, without going below 12 months, to save money. For 20 years, Thibaud has worked in an insurance firm; for him, this situation is not normal. “Someone who has only contributed for 6 months, it is still a bit problematic that he has the same rights as a person who has contributed for 10 years, 20 years or more… It would be normal for him not to “It’s not the same thing for someone who has more than twenty years of unemployment contributions, paid, taken from their pay slip every month” he explains.
“We also need to push people to find work”
According to him, the government must put in place a tailor-made system, adapted to the labor market. “It takes time, we have to look sector by sector, socio-professional category by socio-professional category. That’s the only way we can get through it, do it case by case,” points out Thibaud.
For Stéphanie, who works in finance, it is especially the unemployment rights of younger people that need to be modified. “It’s certain that someone who is 25 years old, to already put 18 months of unemployment on them, that’s already a long period. We also have to push people to find work, not to stay without doing anything, and neither to take advantage in system quotation marks,” she says.
The implementation of this new unemployment insurance reform could, according to recent government announcements, take place as early as this fall.