It’s a real meeting of job rescue that convened Emmanuel Macron this Thursday, June 4, with Édouard Philippe and all the ministers concerned with employment and the economy: Muriel Pénicaud, present at the meeting at the Élysée with Bruno Le Maire (Economy), Gérald Darmanin, Didier Guillaume (Agriculture) and Laurent Pietraszewski (Protection of employees’ health against Covid-19). Around the table, employee organizations (CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, Unsa) and employers’ organizations (Medef, CPME, U2P, FNSEA).
The only concrete measure, and the only one that was hotly awaited, was support for the hiring of apprentices. Muriel Pénicaud, Minister of Labor, announced: the companies that will recruit an apprentice from 1er July to February 28 will benefit from an extended hiring aid of € 8,000 for adults and € 5,000 for minors.
While this aid is currently reserved for companies with less than 250 employees and for diplomas at the level lower than or equal to the bac, it will be extended up to the license and to all companies, subject, for companies with more 250 employees, that they respect a quota of apprentices equivalent to 5% of their workforce.
The extension to higher diplomas is not neutral, as it concerns 38% of French work-study students (in 2018). Additional cost to the state, more than a billion euros.
Comment from Alain Griset, president of U2P (local businesses), this results in the cost of any apprentice being borne by the state, which we asked
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Point not specified at this stage, which the employers and the National Association of apprentices of France claim: that an apprentice can stay almost all his year (instead of three months currently) in his training center even if he does could not find a host company.
The dynamics were good
The 2018 reform (funding and governance reform) gave a boost to the hiring of apprentices in France, who reached a record 491,000 last year. We lost 13,000 apprentices in 2013 and 19,000 in 2014. We gained 17,000 in 2018 and 50,000 in 2019. The dynamics were mowed down by the Covid-19.
In April, companies’ offers fell by 30% to 50% depending on the sector. With a concern that can become financial for all work-study students admitted to private centers whose registration cost (up to € 10,000) is normally borne by the host company. As for the National Association of Apprentices of France, it fears that there will be 50,000 fewer jobs at the start of the next school year. The cost of the crisis can, symmetrically, hit the training centers of apprentices. The reform increased the number from 900 to 1,200.
First SMEs
The latter are 58.9% employed in the tertiary sector (hotels, restaurants, hairdressing, trade, banking, etc.), 21% in industry, 16% in construction, 3.5% in agriculture and fishing. Half of the apprentices start their work-study program with the bac or more. This is one of the major developments in recent years: there were 166,000 work-study students in higher studies in 2017-2018 compared to 70,000 in 2005. The “grandes écoles” themselves account for 15% of graduates from sandwich course.
On the host business side, two-thirds have fewer than fifty employees. But the share of large companies tends to increase.
750,000 young people arriving
While 750,000 young people will enter the job market at the start of the school year, state support measures for apprenticeships are a lever in the hands of the executive to curb the swelling of the unemployed in France. It has just reached the historic figure of six million. However it is estimated, in the metallurgy sector (one of those which suffer from a lack of attractiveness for young people), that 87% of young graduates by work-study find a job within six months after the end of their training.
A lever among many others
A lever that is not the only one: Emmanuel Macron can now play, and put pressure on employers, by modulating a whole set of promised measures: the stimulus plans announced (auto) or to come (aeronautics, housing, consumption of households), more or less coverage of short-time working, lower production taxes, extension or not of loans guaranteed by the State, their transformation into equity in companies, the extinction of social charges and tax so far postponed … And the whole catalog of fiscal and stimulus measures that have been deployed in recent days by different branches of employers.
State coffers have their limits
Still, France’s pockets, even if global investors are still willing to lend billions in confidence, are not infinitely deep. The economic context is very degraded: six million unemployed French people, it’s unprecedented. Eight million others on short-time working, Same.
Social plans are taking off according to the latest figures from the Dares. Gold the public deficit (annual budget in red) will widen to 11.54% of gross domestic product (GDP) while the debt must reach 120% of GDP.
The Medef makes a bleak description of the French particularity: France is above the European average in the fall of its GDP and the increase in its debt and its public expenditure, with a stronger economic downturn than the European average.
The catalog of requests from employers
The Medef, the CPME, the network of Chambers of Trades and Crafts have deployed treasures of imagination so that we can support frightened employers, in certain sectors, by a recovery which could be neither in V (in a few months), or U-shaped (in less than two years), but L-shaped (absent, or very slow …).
On the side of Medef, which rather represents large companies, we drew up last week a list provided: tax credits to reinforce innovation, or for the ecological transition, an exemption from charges for twelve months on the first hires in CDI and € 10,000 in learning aid, or the transformation of part of the loans guaranteed by the State into quasi-equity.
At a European level, an ecological tax at the borders of Europe and, at a global level, digital taxation. Without forgetting a whole range of tax facilities, as well as a rapid drop in production taxes.
Most of these requests are found in the wishes of the network of Chambers of Trades and Crafts, which adds a mandatory mention of origin on manufactured products (in order to promote “made in France”), progressive constraints on the energy performance of housing when it is put up for sale, a reduced VAT for the repair sector, or even an affordable building and rehabilitation plan via the Banque des Territoires (Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations).
CPME also shares most of these requests and adds a few proposals: widening the tax advantages for donations (in order to transfer purchasing power to the youngest), possible unblocking of home savings plans for “Made in France” furnishing expenses, the establishment of a “product in France” tax credit or the allocation of part of the work-study funds to training aimed at relocating the device productive. Without forgetting the launch of a large government loan to finance a program of territorialized investments.
Union red lines
Muriel Pénicaud calls for developing the collective performance agreements, from the start of the Macron quinquennium, to reduce working hours and pay rather than lay off workers.
But they have no preference at all from the unions, which accuse them of not setting a stop over time on concessions in wages, leave or working time, nor of compulsory employment guarantees.
These are not the only red lines of employee unions which, since the start of the crisis, have all called for the abandonment of unemployment insurance reform. This subject will return to the table in a few weeks, said Muriel Pénicaud yesterday. Its second part, which hardens the calculation of the allowance for workers alternating short contracts and periods of unemployment, has already been postponed to 1er September. The subject promises to be heated: unemployment insurance funds have been dried up by short-time working, which is only two-thirds funded by the state.
If the subject of the pension reform has remained unresolved, it is that of the creation of a new branch of Social Security, that intended to finance the dependence of the seniors, which was announced at the end of May. While the social accounts have deteriorated, none of the main subjects on the menu of the “employment” meeting cycle can be completely dissociated from the others. However, the government wants to continue to reduce business costs, including production taxes.
What employer commitments on employment?
But what counterparts are employers willing to guarantee? Within Medef, the Union of Metallurgical Industries and Trades makes its own music heard, through the voice of its president, Philippe Darmayan. He promised, on June 4, in the columns of the Parisian, that in exchange for various support measures it would guarantee the absence of layoffs and the same level of hiring apprentices as last year.
For this, he requests the maintenance of partial unemployment partially usable in employee training, the exemption from charges, for one year, for the first hiring of young people on permanent contracts, the assumption by the State of the cost of apprentices and this , for all companies (and no longer only those with fewer than 250 employees), the extension to nine or ten months (instead of three) of the period during which an apprentice may not find a host company while staying in training.
This does not make a formal sector agreement signed with employee organizations. These will require moving various sliders, certainly on the remuneration side. But the UIMM is one of the employers’ organizations that have “a job” in social dialogue and know how to put an equation or, or to receive, you have to give. Finally, it has good, the old world of social partners.
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