This is one of the shock measures announced by the government, as part of the unemployment insurance reform: the terms and conditions for receiving unemployment benefit will be tightened. Today, it is necessary to have worked at least 4 months during the last 28 months to be compensated (except for those over 53). From 1 November, the reference period taken into account will decrease and that of work will increase. It will be necessary to justify 6 months of activity over the last 24 months to open rights, which, the unions have alerted, risks excluding the most precarious, who accumulate short contracts.
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From when do you receive unemployment benefit in other countries on the continent? In a summary table, Unédic drew up in January 2019 an overview of European mechanisms. Conclusion: today, the French benefit more easily from unemployment insurance than their neighbours. “The a priori very favorable nature of the conditions of eligibility for unemployment insurance in France must however be qualified with regard to the situation of young people under 25 who are the job seekers with the least seniority in employment. and which, moreover, are poorly covered by the benefits of the solidarity scheme”, noted Estelle Dhont-Peltrault, author of a note from the Treasury in December 2016 (1). “At the time of the economic crisis, the French safety net played a real role”, recalls Isabella Biletta, director of research at Eurofound in Dublin.
And tomorrow? The new rules will not really change things: only Spaniards will benefit from more favorable conditions. It is enough to have worked 12 months during the last six years to receive an unemployment benefit.
In Europe, it is in the Netherlands that the eligibility conditions are the most restrictive. To qualify for unemployment benefit, job seekers must have worked 26 weeks in the last 36 weeks. In Germany, Portugal or Sweden, you must have worked at least 12 months during the last 24 months to be eligible for compensation.
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“Even after the reform, the conditions remain more favorable in France than in most other European countries”, confirms the economist Bertrand Martinot, for whom the real injustice of the reform lies in the degressivity, which will concern the executives. From seven months of compensation, the salary replacement rate affected by the unemployed who received more than 4,500 euros gross per month will decrease by 30% (to a floor of 2,261 euros). “Structurally, the job search process is longer for this population, even when the labor market is doing well,” insists the expert from the Montaigne Institute.
In Europe, only six countries already practice degression according to another Unédic comparison published at the end of 2018. In Spain, for example, the replacement rate goes from 70% at the opening of rights to 50% after six months. In the Netherlands, it drops from 75% to 70% after two months. In Germany, the rate does not change over time. Admittedly, the degressivity will not concern those over 57 in France. But on the job market, you are considered senior much earlier…
(1) Unemployment compensation in France with regard to European practices.
