Faced with the health crisis affecting the country, more and more companies and employees are on short-time work. This obviously affects hotels, restaurants and concert halls first. In the Oise and Haut-Rhin, the two most affected places, the situation is critical. State and Unedic aid to pay smic hours for nonworking hours only offset part of the burden for the company.
This curve too is exponential, the number of companies forced to resort to partial unemployment soars.
Last Thursday, 400 companies had asked the Ministry of Labor to be able to resort to partial unemployment. Sunday was 900. By Tuesday, that figure had climbed to 2,000 businesses. This shows you the devastating effects of this crisis on activity. This represents at the time we speak of 30,000 employees who will be put on partial unemployment and this is only the beginning. This obviously affects hotels, restaurants and concert halls first. In the Oise and Haut-Rhin, the two most affected places, the situation is critical. This Wednesday, Nicolas Barré spoke to a manager of the entertainment sector who lost 90% of his turnover. In a case like this, short-time working does not solve everything because state and Unedic aid to pay smic hours for non-working hours only compensates for part of the burden for the company.
Other assistance mechanisms will have to be activated to avoid chain bankruptcies.
We have a precedent, it is the crisis of 2008, and we know what works. Germany compensates for partial unemployment much more than we do, which keeps employees in their jobs for the day when activity resumes. We should follow this example. Another device that works, state guarantees on loans to SMEs. We tested it successfully in France, it saved 31,000 jobs per year between 2009 and 2015, according to a study by several economists including Jean-Noël Barrot, who is now the vice-president Modem of the commission Finance Assembly. No less than 21,000 companies had benefited from these guarantees, they were able to continue borrowing and since they did not go bankrupt, the guarantee did not cost the State anything. The BPI has already taken up the idea by guaranteeing up to 70% of cash loans to SMEs, but we will have to go further. When whole swathes of the economy stop, when turnover drops to zero, drastic measures are needed. Leaving the box is also what we expect from Emmanuel Macron this Thursday evening.