Trade union organizations and employer representatives reached an agreement on Thursday, November 15, concerning the new unemployment insurance compensation rules, which are scheduled to come into force on April 1, 2025.
A new blow for seniors. The agreement established last Thursday between unions and employers ratified in-depth changes to unemployment insurance, via new compensation rules which will come into force on April 1st.
The objective of this new formula is clear: to enable this reform to recover 440 million euros each year.
Beneficiaries over 50 years old targeted
First in the sights of the budgetary planer planned in the new version of unemployment insurance: cross-border workers. The latter now receive unemployment benefits calculated on their high salaries, even though they do not contribute to the French unemployment insurance system.
In total, this would represent a cost of “nearly 9 billion euros to Unédic in 10 years”, according to Jean-François Foucard, national secretary of the CFE-CGC union in the employment and training branch, for Capital. Each year, the 77,000 unemployed cross-border workers have cost France nearly 800 million euros per year.
To remedy this, a reducing coefficient will be introduced next year, thus making it possible to adjust the compensation paid to cross-border workers according to the French standard of living, in addition to salaries earned abroad. This tool should enable the French government to save 250 million euros per year.
Another new feature: the calculation of unemployment benefits will be based, from April 1, 2025, on 30 calendar days each month and no longer on days worked, which would cause beneficiaries to lose 5 to 6 days of compensation per year.
In the same vein, France Travail will be responsible, from next April, for directing support for cross-border job seekers towards work offers located in France, even if the remuneration is lower.
Cross-border workers also targeted by the reform
The second majority target of the unemployment insurance reform coming in 2025 is that of aid beneficiaries aged over 50. “From April 2025, the age limits will be shifted by two years, consistent with the postponement of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years,” summarized Jean-François Foucard for the newspaper economic.
In fact, beneficiaries aged 53 are now entitled to receive their unemployment benefits for 22.5 months. But from next April, you will have to be 55 years old to benefit from such a long period of compensation. In turn, this also applies to beneficiaries aged 55, currently receiving 27 months of compensation. They will have to wait, from April 2025, until the age of 57 to receive more than two years of unemployment benefits.
Following this logic, beneficiaries aged 53 and 54 in April 2025 will therefore no longer be considered seniors and will therefore only be able to claim a duration of compensation reduced to 18 months.
Finally, the age allowing you to maintain your rights until full retirement will also be pushed back, from 62 currently, to 64 next April, in accordance with the 2023 pension reform.
