Barthélémy Philippe / Photo credit: MAGALI COHEN / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 6:18 a.m., March 11, 2024

After two successive reforms, in 2019 then last year, Gabriel Attal announced a third act which could accentuate the degression of benefits and reduce the duration of compensation for job seekers.

But this new blow to unemployment insurance will not necessarily have the expected results.

Achieve full employment by the end of the five-year term and, above all, save money.

A dual objective that the executive intends to achieve through a new cut on unemployment insurance.

The State, which has already announced 10 billion euros in savings for this year and 20 billion for next year, is counting on this new reform which could accentuate the degression of benefits and reduce the duration of compensation for claimants. jobs.

It would, moreover, be a third act after a first reform, in 2019, and another, last year. 

Sufficient to obtain the expected effects?

Nothing is less sure.

First, applying a new turn of the screw while unemployment is rising again would go against the principle of the last reform, which established the principle of countercyclicality.

That is to say, a tightening of compensation conditions when the unemployment rate is low and a relaxation when it rises to 9%. 

A very French evil

This new reform is therefore a bad idea, according to economist Bertrand Martinot.

"There is a rule, let's let it play. It is not a very good policy to tighten the rules when unemployment is rising for cyclical reasons. Because growth is almost zero and job creation is very weak." 

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Such a reform will therefore not guarantee an increase in the employment rate and will not significantly relieve public finances, argues Bertrand Martinot.

“It would not bring in a lot of money, because in fact, it is a small minority of unemployed people who use all of their rights. We are talking about a few tens of millions, at best a few hundred million euros. However, the question of public finances is being played out in packages of billions of euros.” 

If the government moved forward with its idea, it would also succumb to a very French evil.

The one which consists of initiating a new reform while the previous one is still too recent to be evaluated.