During the presentation of the pension reform at the beginning of January, the employment of seniors seemed to have fallen by the wayside. In the menu concocted by the executive there was certainly a new instrument, the senior index, but it seemed to please no one. Far from being enough, sighed the unions, who demand much more than this simple indicator to measure the number of older employees in the company. Already too much, replied the employers, frankly opposed to this new “administrative burden”. Caught between the two, the executive ended up giving pledges to those who wanted to go further. The tone has hardened and the scarecrow of employers has been taken out of the cupboards: the index finger could become “coercive”.
A sudden severity which is not anecdotal: improving the employment rate for seniors is key to the success of the pension reform. In France, people over 55 tend to be left out of the job market. Our employment rate for seniors is actually lagging at 56%, while the European average is 60%, and it collapses even more between 60 and 64 years old (at 35.5%).
The pension reform will of course boost it automatically, with the postponement of the legal retirement age and the acceleration of the increase in the duration of contributions. “But if this observation is true from a macroeconomic point of view, there is still a risk of precariousness for certain seniors”, points out Franck Morel, expert at the Institut Montaigne and former social adviser to Edouard Philippe. Some companies want to get rid of the older ones, because they are often expensive and are considered less productive. They are the first to take the door during the departure plans and small arrangements are then sometimes found with the employees, who agree to find themselves unemployed, the time to reach the moment of retirement.
An educational virtue
A social problem, but also an economic one for the government, which does not want to see the expenditure of unemployment insurance inflated by ricochet. With the establishment of the senior index, the executive wants to encourage companies to no longer get rid of older people via the “name and shame” (“naming and shaming” in the language of Molière). The goal is to value the good students, to point the finger at the dunces, and to encourage them to make efforts to align themselves. Initially, the government only wanted to sanction its non-publication.
Sufficient ? “The index can become an element of attractiveness for companies: even without sanction, they will be pushed to improve”, analyzes Eric Heyer, director of the analysis and forecasting department at the OFCE. “This tool will have an educational virtue: it will allow companies to become aware of their social policy and to put in place corrective measures”, abounds Nicolas Mancret, lawyer in social law at Jeantet.
But the executive no longer refrains from going further to force companies to speed up the pace, and is starting to wave the stick. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne declared herself in favor of sanctions against those who have “bad practices” in the employment of seniors, and Olivier Dussopt of a “slightly more coercive means”, if the second measure does not show of progress. An additional turn of the screw which would not be incongruous: the index for professional equality between women and men provides for a fine for bad students who do not make enough effort. It remains to be seen what form this hypothetical sanction could take.
“We could imagine a bonus-penalty system depending on the branch, because not all have the same ability to hire seniors”, suggests Nicolas Mancret. The threshold making the index compulsory should in turn be lowered (from 300 to 50 employees). And in the Assembly, deputies are agitating to increase the amount of the fine in the event of non-publication. The cost of conventional terminations should also inflate for companies, in order to dissuade them from getting rid of seniors too easily.
A mix of incentive and punishment
After the stick, will the carrot also come out to appease the grumbling employers? “It is not uninteresting to put in place coercive measures, but it is also necessary to provide incentives”, considers Franck Morel, who proposes the establishment of a “senior contract” or the modulation of contributions according to the ‘age. The CPME puts forward another idea: to lighten the burden of employer charges for senior contracts, and to force companies to reimburse them if the person is not ultimately retained in the workforce. A mixture of incitement and punishment.
But the problem of the employment of seniors also requires substantive treatment in other areas, such as training, “which should allow employees to experience a second career or to stop the decline in their productivity”, underlines Eric Heyer. Measures supposed to facilitate retraining should also be part of the future Labor law, and try to correct this point.
“But we should not expect everything from the State: it sets a framework, and the social partners must then seize the subject to negotiate within the framework of the branches and plan, for example, adjustments to workstations or even possibilities of moving to part-time or moving towards less exposed jobs at the end of the career”, warns Bertrand Martinot, expert at the Institut Montaigne. A long-term task that should extend well beyond the debate on pension reform.