Even if it improved last year, the employment rate (58.4 %) of French employees between 55 and 64 years remains 5 points lower than the European average. Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, the Minister of Labor, and Benoît Serre, the delegate vice-president of the National Association of HRDs, advance different tracks to fill this delay.
L’Express: Parliament will discuss a bill on the employment of seniors in a few weeks. What does this text bring, which transposes the agreement signed in November by the social partners?
Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet: I launch a large initiative around the employment of experienced employees – I prefer this term to that of “senior”! – With three ambitions: change the law, change business practices, change looks in society. It is with these three changes that the early exit from the world of work will no longer be inevitable with us. The law alone, even from an agreement of the social partners, will not be enough. But it sets up expected tools. For employers, it creates the “contract to enhance the experience” which will facilitate the hiring of the over 60s by giving visibility on the retirement age at full rate of the employee and the possibility of breaking the contract. For employees, it establishes an interview in mid-carrier to anticipate health and skills issues.
Benoît Serre: The agreement which will be transcribed is important, in particular this contract to enhance the experience. But more than the law, the main lever is the will of the leaders. I observe it: when they decide to get involved on the subject, things are moving. Many companies, large and small, are getting out of the system consisting in creating protective conditions to send the seniors. The approach is reversed. They now wonder how not to find themselves in a situation of having to separate from these employees.
A tool already exists, the GEPP, for job management and professional career paths. The idea is that the career plan for older employees is treated a little differently from that of others. You can simplify it. Another example: in a recent report, the UNEDIC points that the seniors are the least geographically mobile, which is quite logical since they have often bought their accommodation and makes their lives somewhere. We must be able to – and the law can help us – facilitate mobility within the same employment pool, or the possibility of working for several companies, which is not obvious today.
AP-B. This is why, in April, we asked the social partners to get back around the table to discuss reconversions. In 2019, a previous negotiation had led to the creation of “collective transitions” (Transco), which target companies affected by restructuring. This system was to facilitate collective conversions in the same employment area. However, because of its complexity, it has only benefited today in a thousand employees. I hope that this new negotiation will lead by early June, in which case a new more effective tool may also be put in law.
What do we know about the desire of seniors themselves to work longer?
AP-B. This is the second axis of the initiative I take: to change the look at the over 50s in employment, including theirs, via a large communication campaign. Many have used, despite themselves, to the idea that they no longer had their place in the business. I receive many messages from people who, all levels of qualification confused, feel put on the sidelines and live it as a heartbreak. It is not only an economic and social mess, but also human and family. Age has become the first discrimination in the labor market. It strikes women even harder.
Bs This fatalism is terrible because the employees adopt, to their defending bodies, a form of mesestime of themselves. From 55 years old, their only objective is to last before, they fear, to be “leaving”. The company’s responsibility is to anticipate, with them, this second part of the career. Anticipate conversions, because certain trades are not tenable a lifetime. Or provide positions, to avoid breaks related to professional incapacity. And then, it is also necessary to twist the neck with several prejudices. I have never observed that managers are more difficult to supervise people older than them, quite the contrary. As for the bias according to which the 50 years and over would not have the necessary digital skills, it is a joke: it’s been twenty years since they bathe in this universe.
AP-B. There are as many aspirations as experienced employees. Some want to transmit their know-how, others work part-time to take care of their grandchildren, others still give themselves up to retirement. It is paradoxical, but most of the existing devices aim above all to accompany their exit from work. This nourishes the feeling that, after a certain age, we are no longer good for a full -time job. The transmission of knowledge is laudable but one cannot reduce the end of career to skills patronage. It is necessary to put an end to the idea that the 55 years and over would be half-employees, with half a production, only good to pass the hand.
A figure struck me in an IPSOS survey, it was the rate of large companies that have implemented or plan to implement human resources policies consistent with the 2023 pension reform: barely 40 %. In VSEs, it’s 10 %. We still speak of a reform passed two years ago and which must lead employers to review the way in which they approach the question of experienced workers. This is our third axis: to change practices by concrete actions. With the Andrh, the community “companies are committed”, the social partners and the state services, we will organize events in June to share the best practices of companies, which will conclude in Vannes, with 600 DRH. We will also disseminate a guide to good practices for companies and open a website with concrete solutions for employees aged 50 and over.
Benoît Serre, how do you explain this wait-and-see attitude?
Bs France is going through a moment of political instability and economic uncertainty which has undoubtedly not encouraged all companies to look, as they should, on the lengthening of the legal retirement age. But they did it in another way, reflecting on new organizations around teleworking, to offer more autonomy to everyone. Seniors are employees like the others, they aspire to the same transformations. In a sense, I think that their job retention in good conditions will be better guaranteed by adapting the current managerial patterns or working time, rather than creating, for themselves, specific devices.
Minister, in January, you had suggested that some pensioners could contribute more to the financing of the system. The hypothesis had been dismissed by the government, which was then sought to avoid the censorship of its budget. But it comes back today in the debate. Did you get right too early?
AP-B. I am concerned about the fact that the financing of social protection, whose retirement pensions, does not weigh in a disproportionate manner on work and affects it. France suffers from an anomaly compared to other European countries: a colossal gap between the super gross salary paid by the company [NDLR : intégrant les cotisations salariales et patronales] And the net salary that landed in the employee’s pocket. It is such as we compensate by load reduction for companies in order to lower the cost of labor, and by activity bonus, to stimulate the purchasing power of low wages. To work more numerous, you have to work better, so give the right incentives to businesses so that they recruit and keep employment, and employees by guaranteeing them that their work pays. You have to stop seeing retirees as a homogeneous block. What would justify separate approaches are not active or inactive status are income and heritage.
Bs This subject is fundamental. All The bosses of SMEs say: as soon as an employee is above the minimum wage, increasing it by 100 euros costs the company 200 euros, while it receives only 50. Result: no one is satisfied.
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