The announcement was eagerly awaited by employees on sick leave for childcare or high vulnerability to the coronavirus. Indeed, the government announced this Friday, April 17 that these 2.1 million French people could go into short-time working as of the beginning of May and receive 84% of their net earnings, or around 70% of gross salary. Until the end of April and with retroactive effect from March 12, their remuneration will be 90% of gross salary, of which 40% paid by the employer and the rest by Social Security. Employees on minimum wage will keep 100% of their salary.
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Before this decree published this Friday, April 17, the compensation of employees on sick leave in office for one to five years was 90% of gross salary but fell to 66% after thirty days of work stoppage, which was to happen after a months of confinement. For those who had been in office for less than a year, employers were not required to supplement the 50% share of gross wages paid by Social Security.
Retroactivity until March 12
The decree concerns " work stoppages for childcare or work stoppages issued to vulnerable persons at increased risk of developing serious forms of the disease as well as to persons cohabiting with these vulnerable persons ". The level of remuneration of these employees will be guaranteed for all " up to 90% of their salary, regardless of their seniority " until April 30, and the provision is retroactive until March 12.
From May 1, specifies the decree, " employees who are on work stoppage for these reasons will be placed in partial activity and will receive compensation up to 70% of gross salary, or approximately 84% of net salary. These amounts will be raised to 100% of the salary for employees paid at the minimum wage ”. Concretely, employees will therefore see their remuneration drop from 90% to 70% of their gross salary if their company does not supplement the compensation received for partial unemployment. Without this device, these same employees would have gone to 66% of the gross after one month.
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" Sick leave for people who have between one and five years of seniority decrease after 30 days, they go from 90% to 66% of gross salary, we confirm on the side of the Ministry of Labor. Same after 40 days for people with 5 to 10 years of service, and 50 days for employees with more than 10 years of service. Since April 16, part of the 1.7 million employees who were in daily allowance for childcare or 400,000 in daily allowance for vulnerable persons therefore went from 90% to 66% of net salary, and lost 24% of their remuneration. It was not possible to let that happen. "
Two-step device
To avoid putting too much weight on businesses, the government therefore had the idea of a two-step system. “ Initially, from April 16 to 30, companies are asked to maintain the 90% gross salary, regardless of seniority. It is an effort that we ask businesses for 15 days. And then, from May 1, we switch to a partial activity regime, at least for 11 days because normally schools are supposed to reopen, but perhaps longer depending on the case. "
For the ministry, this device makes it possible to respect two principles: " not to lose purchasing power or very little for the employees, and not to be threatened with bankruptcy for the companies because of a load which one asks them to bear when they have no revenue . " On the operational side, it is up to the company to make a request on the platform dedicated to partial unemployment. It will then pay wages and be reimbursed by the State.