The effects of the coronavirus on the French economy are gaining momentum. This Thursday, the Minister of Labor announced that 3,600 companies in France have applied for partial unemployment measures, four times more than at the end of last week. In total, 60,000 employees are concerned today, mainly in tourism, catering, events and transport. "And it's going to be much more," warned Muriel Pénicaud. Note that at the start of the week, the State had already wanted to encourage the use of this system by raising the minimum wage (8.03 euros net per hour) the compensatory hourly allowance that it pays to employers in partial unemployment. In addition, regional offices are now striving to respond to business requests within 48 hours, compared to 15 days previously.
An addition that will increase for the State
At this point, the cost to the state is 180 million euros. An addition that will certainly increase since the Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, said he was open to uncapping the device beyond the hourly minimum wage. "It will amount to hundreds of millions of euros but I think it is money well spent," said the minister. Clearly, the idea is to soften the shock for companies that use the device and whose employees are usually paid above the minimum wage.
For his part, Muriel Pénicaud also mentioned a possible postponement of the unemployment insurance reform and will take measures within a few days "for precarious workers". As a reminder, they are the first to be affected by this reform, the toughest compensation rules of which are to come into force on April 1.
