Government plans long-term unemployment benefit

The unemployed may soon be eligible for long-term unemployment benefits. In any case, this is the idea put forward by the government. Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud has tabled an amendment to her bill "Professional Future", currently debated in the Senate after it was adopted in first reading in the National Assembly. Of the 700 amendments tabled, one of them therefore plans to "review the link between insurance and solidarity, possibly by creating a long-term unemployment benefit."

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In practical terms, this allowance could be paid beyond two years. And this is the novelty. Today, the rules of the unemployment insurance provide that the compensation is paid to unemployed people registered at Pôle emploi for a minimum duration of 4 months and a maximum duration of two years for those under 53 years (2 years and a half for the 53/54 years and 3 years for the 55 years and over). An unemployed person who has still not found a job after two years has therefore exhausted his rights and falls into the Specific Solidarity Allowance (SSA). If the government's plan comes about, it could disappear. The stakes are high: according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Labor, the number of job seekers registered for more than two years at Pôle emploi, all categories combined, reached 1.4 million at the end of May.

Discussions around of a new convention

For the moment, the contours of this long-term unemployment benefit remain unclear. And for good reason: the government wants its modalities to be defined by the social partners as part of a renegotiation of the rules of unemployment insurance. These are normally reviewed every three years by the unions and employers to reach a convention. The last, signed in April 2017, came into effect in October. "The government will ask the social partners to negotiate a new unemployment insurance agreement, to better fight against precariousness and to encourage job seekers to return to work," says the amendment tabled yesterday. The discussions will take place under the gaze of the State, which will provide the social partners with a framework document which will itself be the subject of "prior consultation", says the government.

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This negotiation will open in September and should be completed by the end of the year or early next year, said Muriel Pénicaud. The goal is to include the new rules in the "Professional Futures" bill for entry into force in the spring of 2019. "At the very moment when employment is starting again, where there are many prospects and where jobs, there is nevertheless a long-term unemployment on which the social partners might want to do something, "said Muriel Pénicaud.

This topic should be on the agenda of the meeting of the heads of the eight employers' organizations and trade unions this Wednesday. The latter meet to try to list common priorities and show a united front against the Head of State who must receive them on July 17 at the Elysee. "On unemployment insurance, there was a negotiation. Apparently, that's not enough. I'm saying that if the government is asking us to make unemployment insurance more efficient without cutting corners, it's all about it. If it is to get rid of the rights with a letter framing the government which, in fact, is already the conclusion of the negotiation, it will not work (…) The rules of the game must be clear. warned this morning the boss of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, on Radio Clbadique.