compensation for cross-border workers in Luxembourg will drop in 2025

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A new step on the issue of unemployment insurance in France was reached on Thursday, November 14: the social partners agreed on three chordsincluding one planned to make change the compensation rules unemployed from January 1, 2025.

This provides in particular for reduce benefits for unemployed cross-border workers having worked in Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland.

Unemployment of cross-border workers: compensation that is expensive

Unemployment of cross-border workers is very expensive, such was the conclusion issued by Unédic (unemployment insurance manager) in its report dated last October. Precisely, he was moving forward an additional cost estimated at 803 million euros.

A cross-border worker in Luxembourg contributes to Luxembourg unemployment insurance. However, if he loses his job, he will be compensated by his country of residence. His rights will be calculated depending on his salary abroadmuch higher than in France.

European regulations provide for financial compensation by the States in which cross-border workers have contributed. But Unédic deplored compensation expenses relating to cross-border workers that exceeded these reimbursements. Which explains this additional cost.

A drop in unemployment to save money

Concretely, the agreement agreed by the French social partners plans to apply a coefficient for the rights of cross-border beneficiaries depending on the salary level of the country in which they worked. In finethis should result a significant drop in their compensation in the vast majority of cases.

The signatories of this agreement also ask for a review of the notion of “reasonable offer of employment”, so that cross-border workers cannot not refuse a position at the French salary level.

In total, according to a calculation by Unédic, 1.4 billion euros savings over four years should overall be achieved.

“Discrimination” against French cross-border workers

If the French government welcomed these agreements, this is not the case for the LCGB and OGBL unions in Luxembourg. In a press release dated November 15, they said they were “dismayed by this new discrimination of French cross-border workers undertaken by their government.

It would seem that the bases for calculating unemployment benefits will in the future be calculated with a lower coefficient in order to reduce the amounts of these benefits for French cross-border workers and this with different coefficients for each border country. It would also appear that the definition of suitable work will be modified in the future in order to force the unemployed to accept much more unfavorable employment offers than at present.

The unions go on to explain that this measure “is part of the French government’s desire to make significant social cuts with the simple aim of budgetary savings. […] The government has once again decided to tackling social gains millions of French people. »

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