Full employment: Emmanuel Macron wants to reform the labor market again
Published on January 16, 2024 at 10:03 pmUpdated on January 16, 2024 at 10:28 pm.
Emmanuel Macron began his first five-year term with a major reform of social dialogue in businesses, the famous Labor Ordinance. Six and a half years later, the head of state announced the “Labor Market Reform Law II in 2017, as of next spring.” “This is to achieve full employment,” he said in his press conference presentation on Tuesday evening.
This Act II is supposed to “encourage the creation or resumption of employment”. “That means strict rules when rejecting a job offer. And better support for our unemployed,” he added. through training or through “very concrete things” related to housing or transportation.
Provide more training as per “needs of the nation”.
Is it a question of going beyond the two big projects, the implementation of France Travel, or coming up with the transfer into law of the result of the negotiations of the social partners on the employment of senior employees? ? Or is it a question of starting new unemployment insurance reforms, after 2019 and 2022, knowing that the next UNIDEC convention that employers and unions have just agreed on is suspended on the outcome of these negotiations?
That’s up to the government, more specifically the new Labor Minister, Catherine Vautrin, to say in the coming days. His predecessor, Olivier Dussopt, requested in “Les Ecos” last month for Act II of the labor market reform, “which is more training, more flexibility, more mobility, more expectation and when we can simplify it is better. »
On this point, he specifically drew attention to “the question of time limits for challenging legal proceedings in the event of dismissal”, which he considered “too long”. “We also have the subject of social dialogue, which is difficult to implement when there is no union in the company,” he added.
Step up efforts to train employees
Another file on the new minister’s desk: Emmanuel Macron’s desire to “accelerate this year to the next school year” to train workers “according to the nation’s needs.” Following this, he directed the reform of vocational high schools and universities.
Will it be a question of going beyond the renewal of the PIC, a major investment scheme in skills for the first five-year term? In any case, this training effort is supposed to put an end to “this anomaly” which means that France today lacks workers “in the fields, in the restaurants, in our artisans”. Because it risks lack tomorrow in nuclear or digital. “Our country will also be stronger because more French people will work,” declared the head of state.