- Elisabeth Borne becomes the new Minister of Labor.
- She will occupy a post deemed difficult. Despite the establishment of partial unemployment, it will have to respond to the rise in unemployment, deemed inevitable.
- If the minister will be able to act against unemployment through the development of reconversion, she has few levers to counter the rising unemployment that is looming. “You have to have a sense of sacrifice, that's obvious. You have nothing but bad news to report, ”explains Bertrand Martinot, adviser at the Montaigne Institute.
She will occupy one of the most difficult positions in the coming months. After Transport and the Ecological Transition, Elisabeth Borne has just been appointed Minister of Labor by the new head of government Jean Castex, at the heart of the looming economic crisis.
Elisabeth Borne will have to lead a ministry where the situation has completely turned around. Last February, his predecessor, Muriel Pénicaud, already believed himself to be close to full employment, hoping to reach 7% unemployment by 2022. Now, the Banque de France expects unemployment to climb to 11.5 % mid-2021.
Wave of bankruptcies and layoffs
This is the first subject that awaits the new minister: the waves of layoffs despite an unprecedented partial unemployment scheme. “We must avoid an over-adjustment of employment compared to bankruptcies, which will affect viable businesses in the medium term. However, with partial unemployment, the State requires a significant participation of companies and it will be difficult to go further, "explains Frédéric Lerais, director of the Institute for Economic and Social Research, an organization serving union organizations. Despite public aid, plans to cut jobs are increasing, in the automobile, aviation and aeronautics industries. And Bercy already finds that in their initial plans, companies are a little too heavy handed.
A position all the more delicate to hold, according to Frédéric Lerais, that the government has, since 2017, developed "a range of devices to facilitate the separations between companies and employees". Put in place by Macron ordinances, the cap on labor compensation in the event of unfair dismissal allows dismissals at controlled costs. For their part, the collective collective ruptures make it possible to eliminate jobs in the event of agreement with the unions, without going through a social plan mediately not very rewarding. "The State decided that it was collective bargaining [that is to say, companies and their unions] to settle things," sums up Frédéric Lerais.
Avoid massive social plans
If an increase in layoffs is to be feared, how big will it be? Economist at the Montaigne Institute, liberal think tank, Bertrand Martinot underlines that companies will have "a lot of flexibility to negotiate innovative agreements on working time, remuneration or employment, which did not exist in 2008-2009" . It remains to be seen whether collective performance agreements, which allow such compromises and are far from unanimous, will be used. "The social partners will have a historic responsibility for making internal flexibility, or getting rid of overstaffing as we have too often done in the past in France".
A subject on which Emmanuel Macron warned in his interview with the regional press. “We must collectively break away from what is the French disease: the preference for unemployment. The classic French model is to accept massive social plans, then to have a very generous system that compensates them. Basically, a model which means that we have never solved the problem of mass unemployment ”.
Unemployment insurance reform
But could it be otherwise? It is precisely on the softening of unemployment insurance rules that the government is expected at the turn. Trade unions are campaigning to reverse this reform launched in 2018. According to them, this is a necessity, given the economic crisis that is already affecting precarious workers. For the moment, Emmanuel Macron has not yet formalized an arbitration which asks him to back off on his own reforms. Since November 2019, the conditions for opening entitlement to compensation have been tightened; as for the reform of the calculation of unemployment compensation, it was postponed from April to September 2020.
The number of job seekers is already starting to increase. By the end of 2020, with companies whose cash flow is constrained, Unédic expects the destruction of 900,000 salaried jobs and the compensation of 650,000 additional unemployed. “There will be many unemployed and a large unemployment insurance deficit. This is not the time to make budgetary savings, especially since what is striking with this reform is that it affects young people, those who chain CDDs. Socially, it's very risky, ”says Frédéric Lerais of Ires.
“The reform should have the effect of reducing the rights of people who were chained up with short contracts and periods of unemployment and who, sometimes, refused to accept permanent contracts. Except that now, we will rather encourage to return to work no matter what. From this point of view, I am not sure that the reform is suitable. The government cannot be adamant on this subject, ”explains Bertrand Martinot.
Retraining of job seekers
How can we help the jobseekers who have just lost their jobs or those who cannot find a new one? The subject should occupy Elisabeth Borne in the coming months.
“The subject will be training in the broadest sense. It will be necessary to be taken in hand by professionals to be oriented, to have well targeted and innovative training. The conversions are going to be heavy because it will be necessary to pass from companies which poach to companies which recruit. We are historically very ill-equipped for this kind of thing. With the State, Pôle emploi, the regions, the social partners, everyone is in their silo and everything is not coordinated ”, believes Bertrand Martinot, who was between 2008 and 2012 director general of employment and vocational training .
Monitor youth employment
Added to these new unemployed are young people, who are even more fragile in a context of crisis and which the government has started to deal with. Aid to avoid as much as possible the fall in learning has already been announced. Announcements are expected to encourage companies to hire young people, either in the form of a hiring bonus or an exemption from employee contributions.
On the other hand, the return of subsidized jobs is a priori excluded. These contracts, which have been used extensively by previous governments, have been described as “dead ends” by the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire. They were, according to the executive, too expensive compared to their effectiveness. In the meantime, the skills-job paths - the new version of subsidized jobs, much more selective - have decreased by 64% between March and June 2020, compared to the same period last year.
The most painful job in the world
“The Ministry of Labor will try to strengthen the support systems for training. It's always taken. But this is not a short-term solution. The major issue is not there, but in measures to support the economy. In the event of budgetary austerity, the Minister of Labor will be in great difficulty. It would have to have a right of scrutiny and discussion on economic policy, otherwise it will be the most painful job in the world, ”recalls Frédéric Lerais.
“The engine of growth that risks collapsing is investment. However, all forecasters foresee its collapse because of the uncertainty, the deterioration of the balance sheets, ”warns Bertrand Martinot. He therefore considers the rise in unemployment difficult to avoid. “Unfortunately, the destruction of jobs will be part of the solution to the crisis. The deeper the crisis, the more the productive structures are modified ”, judges the adviser of the Institut Montaigne.
Enough to make this ministerial post, the third for Elisabeth Borne under the Macron era, particularly exposed to criticism. “You have to have a sense of sacrifice, that's obvious. You only have bad news and the only thing you can say is that it would have been worse if you hadn't done anything. ”
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