The Union of Local Businesses (U2P) is concerned on Sunday that some of the economic measures taken by the government to deal with the health crisis linked to the new coronavirus are "totally inapplicable" or "ineffective". The U2P deplores in a statement that "many requests for partial unemployment are not the subject of a positive response on the ground when they should be granted to companies that request it".
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She also observes that "in many situations, companies are also confronted with requests for exorbitant supporting documents from their Direccte (regional labor directorate, Editor's note)". Already on Wednesday, the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CPME) had alerted to the increase in cases of refusal of partial unemployment, despite the expansion of this system by the government to preserve employment in the face of the current crisis induced by the coronavirus.
The Minister of Labor Muriel Pénicaud then assured that "only 28 requests for partial unemployment had been justifiedly refused". Friday evening, the use of partial unemployment had been requested by 220,000 companies for 2.2 million employees in total, according to the minister. The Union of local businesses also requests "that the compensation of 1,500 euros provided for businesses not forced to an administrative closure is not subject to a drop in turnover of at least 70% in March but maximum of 50%, knowing that the activity stops only started on March 15 ”.
A solidarity fund, whose planned spending over one month is 1 billion euros, has been created by the government to help businesses cope with the economic and social consequences of the state of health emergency caused by the coronavirus epidemic. It is dedicated to very small businesses and the self-employed who achieve less than one million euros in turnover and who either lost 70% of their activity in March 2020 compared to March 2019, or were forced to close due to containment.
The U2P finally asks in its press release "that employers can impose, by way of derogation, employees to take part of their paid holidays during the confinement period, without this option being subject to a branch or company agreement "So as not to put local businesses and VSEs" out of time ".
