DECRYPTION
Partial unemployment broke record after record during confinement. According to the latest data published by the Ministry of Labor, 1.3 million companies have made a request, for 12.7 million employees concerned. But beware, this figure is to be taken with tweezers. It does not in fact correspond to reality within companies. Explanations.
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Rather 8.6 million workers in partial unemployment
Today, there are not 12.7 million people on partial unemployment. Like all the figures announced by the Minister of Labor Muriel Pénicaud since the start of the crisis, this corresponds to the requests for prior authorization made by companies wishing to resort to partial unemployment. They indicate the number of employees concerned and the cumulative hours that this represents. It is therefore only an inventory of administrative requests and not an empirical reality.
To verify the veracity of this figure, Dares carried out a large field survey of 38,000 companies, which it then cross-checked with the number of requests. Result: partial unemployment would actually affect 8.6 million employees, a substantial difference of four million people.
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Companies have seen the big picture as a precaution
How to explain such a difference ? Already, all the files submitted are not automatically accepted. One example among many: Amazon. After the cessation of activity in warehouses, the e-commerce giant filed a request for partial unemployment. Application refused a few days later by the Ministry of Labor.
Above all, there is a gap between what is asked and what is ultimately applied. Given the lack of visibility caused by the coronavirus and the prolonged containment, companies have seen big when making their request to the Ministry of Labor. However, they did not necessarily use the entire number of hours requested. As a result, the claims for compensation, which are made after application of partial unemployment and inventory of the employees actually affected, are less important than the prior claims.
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In any case, the very gradual recovery of activity seems to be looming. Also according to Dares, at the end of April, even before deconfinement, 12% of employees worked in a company whose activity was completely stopped. It is seven points lower than in March.