The problem of pensions is not limited to the financial balance of the system.
Successive reforms come up against another stumbling block, and not the least important: barely more than one person between 55 and 64 in two has a job.
A major problem, that of the employment of seniors, to which the government intends to provide answers within the framework of its pension reform.
"
It's a fight in which I deeply believe
," even insisted Elisabeth Borne during her presentation on Tuesday, believing that the project will bring "
major progress
" in this area.
To discover
Pension reform: calculate the age at which you will finally leave
Among the range of solutions provided by the pension reform is the use of phased retirement.
This device, created in 1988, makes it possible to reduce one's working time two years before the legal retirement age by working part-time – between 40 and 80% of full-time.
The shortfall in salary is then entirely covered by part of the retirement pension.
During this period, unlike the combination of employment and retirement, the employee continues to contribute in order to be able to assert his rights at the end of the contribution period.
And at the time of definitive retirement, the amount of the pension cannot be less than the amount which served as the basis for the calculation of the progressive retirement fraction.
Read alsoThe under-exploited track of progressive retirements
Progressive retirement therefore allows an employee to reduce his activity, while contributing.
To benefit from it, you must be at least 60 years old, have contributed at least 150 quarters and therefore take a position with a part-time working period.
Imagine that Sophie, 61, is an employee of the private sector.
She has already contributed 159 quarters out of the 167 needed today to receive a full-rate retirement pension.
She can ask her employer to benefit from progressive retirement by moving to 60% of her activity by her final retirement.
The subsequent loss of salary will then be compensated by the national old-age insurance fund, to which she has contributed and where she will continue to contribute for her part-time salaried activity.
Towards a simplification of the system
Problem: this device remains poorly known and little used by the main stakeholders.
For the time being, only a very meager contingent of 23,000 employees benefits from it.
The government therefore intends to increase the number of people concerned, by first widening access to civil servants and self-employed workers, who are not currently entitled to phased retirement.
In addition to the enlargement, the government also wants easier access to the system: “
The burden of proof will be reversed in favor of the employee.
A request for a change to part-time to access gradual retirement will be authorized unless the employer responds to the contrary, justifying the incompatibility with the economic activity,
”specifies the press kit for the reform.
Enough to encourage more workers to seize this possibility, wants to believe the executive.
This relaxation of the boundaries between employment and pensions was already one of the axes of the pension reform of Emmanuel Macron's previous five-year term, presented in December 2019. A report written by Sophie Bellon, already president of the Sodexo group, submitted to Muriel Pénicaud , Minister of Labor at the time, then recommended “
broadening and facilitating access to progressive retirement in a simplified and harmonized framework
”.
According to the business manager, "
greater success for this system could make it possible to avoid total interruptions of activity suffered (unemployment) knowing that it has been shown that the prospects of resumption of employment decrease sharply with age.
".
Read alsoThe Bellon report’s 5 ways to keep seniors employed longer
The government has not announced anything on the other hand on the alleviation of the conditions of age and quarters contributed, yet wanted by Sophie Bellon in her report in 2019. The parliamentary debates which will begin on February 6 in the National Assembly could however make move the lines.