The unemployment insurance accounts were to be in balance in 2021… Patatras. With the Covid-19 health crisis, the accumulated debt could reach 47 billion euros at the end of May, or even 60 billion at the end of 2020, according to estimates made at the end of April. Confinement requires, the government has decided to put the package on social depreciation measures to support businesses and employment. Unédic thus spent a billion euros per week of confinement, or around 10 billion euros in just under three months. Unheard of in memory of administrators who manage the compensation system contributing today to the payment of unemployment benefits for nearly 15 million people.
A colossal bill due mainly to the funding of partial unemployment for employees of companies whose activity has been affected by the coronavirus crisis. The executive has chosen to make the scheme much more generous, with state-compensated salaries up to 31.97 euros per hour, compared to between 7.23 euros and 7.74 euros for the hour before. In total, 12.2 million employees are covered by a request according to the latest indications provided by the Ministry of Labor, paid up to a third (33%) by Unédic.
"We have become the state banker"
"A contribution requested by the government which is not funded and is not subject to any unemployment insurance contribution. We have become the state banker, ”said Jean-François Foucard of CFE-CGC.
And that's not counting the cost of the announcement made Wednesday, May 6 by Emmanuel Macron in the direction of the intermittent workers of the show. The President of the Republic has accepted the extension of their rights until the summer of 2021. According to initial estimates, it is almost a billion additional expenses to bail out the regime of 100,000 artists and technicians compensated each year. To this, we must add the care by Unédic of people on sick leave for childcare who switched on May 1 into the partial unemployment system (around 400 million euros).
None of the Unédic managers, unions and employers alike, dispute this role of shock absorber. But this colossal bill from the Covid-19 crisis for the unemployment insurance scheme is a serious concern. “The 39 billion euros of annual resources of the plan (Editor's note: collected via contributions) barely compensates job seekers. If we type in our accounts without giving additional revenue, we find ourselves overdrawn, "explains Eric Couportin of the CFTC.
What about the reform?
Soaring spending on the one hand, and possible fall in revenue - contributions - on the other, the economic crisis, with its share of new unemployed, has only just begun. "It's going to be a killing. And if there is a second wave! Fears Jean-François Foucard (CFE-CGC). "It is not up to job seekers to pay for the partial activity," protests Michel Beaugas from FO. Discretion is required at Medef, where positions on the subject are not completely settled.
Faced with this worrying situation, union officials - who refused on Tuesday to sign the addendum to the agreement on the financing of short-time working - are demanding the opening of discussions with the state. "To find out how we finance, and not just by debt and loans," insists Denis Gravouil of the CGT.
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All also intend to convince the government to abandon the implementation of the second part of the unemployment insurance reform postponed from April to September, which will penalize the most precarious. They have come back a lot since Muriel Pénicaud hinted in late April that she would not give up. However according to our information, the Minister of Labor would have been slapped on the fingers by Matignon and the Elysée after his declarations. A close friend of the executive confirms this: “It is not in the middle of a storm that we tighten the screw. The social consequences would be disastrous. "
