Emmanuel Macron and Edouard Philippe bring together unions and employers Thursday in search of solutions to preserve employment, hard hit by the recession linked to the coronavirus crisis, the executive betting in parallel on the ongoing deconfinement to revive activity.
Union demands (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa) and employers' demands (Medef, CPME, U2P, FNSEA) are likely to be numerous and undoubtedly divergent, while the macroeconomic indicators are all in red: the government anticipates a fall in GDP of 11% this year due to the “extremely brutal economic shock” caused by the almost total shutdown of the economy, linked to the epidemic. More than eight million people are partially unemployed and more than six million job seekers were counted by Pôle emploi in April. Unheard of in France.
Unemployment insurance reform on the agenda
On the menu for discussions at this third meeting since the confinement - for the first time in "face-to-face" at the Elysée and not by videoconference -, "learning, partial activity, unemployment insurance", according to Marylise Léon, number two of the CFDT. On the learning side, there is urgency. Without state support, work-study participants expect a 20 to 40% drop in apprenticeship offers offered by companies.
Coronavirus: Decrease in contracts and vocations… In a state of alert, learning suspended from State announcements https://t.co/T4X7xFtLkL via @ 20minutesEco pic.twitter.com/ujA0SyDKPJ
- 20minutesEco (@ 20minutesEco) June 4, 2020Unemployment insurance side, all the unions ask since the beginning of the crisis the abandonment of the reform. Its second part, which tightens the calculation of the allowance for workers alternating short contracts and periods of unemployment, has already been postponed to September 1. In recent days, the government has multiplied calls to businesses to set up "collective performance agreements", a system created at the start of the five-year period which allows for the adjustment of remuneration, working hours and employee mobility to preserve business and employment.
But the unions take a dim view of this "solution". This is what the intention to say to Emmanuel Macron Yves Veyrier, the secretary general of FO. "Opposing wages to employment would be the worst answer to give, it would be a mistake from a macroeconomic point of view," he told MEPs on Wednesday. And "no need to touch the legal duration of working time", had meanwhile launched his counterpart from the CFDT, Laurent Berger, a week ago, before the same deputies.
Economy
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- Emmanuel Macron
- Edouard Philippe
- Society
- Economy
- Unemployment
- Union
- Employment