Unemployment benefits from France Travail: what will change for job seekers in 2025

The various events experienced by the executive in recent weeks have created a climate of uncertainty over the various planned measures. It's over as far as unemployment insurance rules are concerned. The new Prime Minister, François Bayrou, approved this Friday – via the publication of a decree in the Official Journal – the agreement signed in mid-November by the social partners including new provisions regarding compensation for the unemployed.

This new agreement was reached by the majority of unions with the exception of the CGT and the CFE-CGC following the desire expressed by the Barnier government to give Unédic managers a voice regarding the rules of unemployment insurance.

This agreement provides for several changes, particularly for seniors, which should come into force from January 1, 2025 – for a period of 4 years – for people who lose their job or for whom a dismissal procedure has been initiated from this date. date.

Several provisions concern senior job seekers. While the legislation provides for a maximum duration of compensation of 18 months for the majority of unemployed people, seniors – for whom the job search is often more complex – benefit from an extended duration of affiliation.

However, this agreement will change the situation by shifting the age limits by 2 years. Unemployed people aged 55 and 56 will be able to benefit from a maximum duration of compensation, compared to 53 and 54 years old previously. Unemployed people aged 57 will be able to remain affiliated for 27 months, the period previously provided for those over 55. Unemployed people aged 53 and 54 will be subject to the common 18-month compensation system.

Seniors who could previously be granted a continuation of the return to work assistance allowance (ARE) until full retirement, i.e. from age 62, will have to wait until age 64 due to the postponement of the legal retirement age by the recent reform.

Some good news still counterbalances these losses of rights. Seniors over 55 years old (compared to 53 and 54 years previously) reaching the end of their contract and wishing to undertake training validated by France Travail or financed by the CPF will be able to benefit from an extension of the duration of compensation by 137 days maximum. Seniors should also see the age from which the degression of the ARE for those earning more than €4,500 per month at the time of registration does not apply is reduced from 57 years to 55 years.

The amount of the ARE will no longer be calculated daily but monthly over a fixed period of 30 days. This reform of the calculation should therefore result in a loss of 5 to 6 days of compensation per year, with certain months counting 31 days and not 30.

Unemployed people who have taken over or created a business will only be able to benefit from 60% of the accumulation of their allowance with the income generated by this new activity.

Seasonal workers should benefit from a reduction in the minimum working time from 6 months to 5 months, “in correlation with their minimum compensation duration corresponds to 5 months”notes Unédic in a press release.

However, certain measures were ruled out by the decree published by the government. Exit therefore the measure allowing first-time job seekers to see the working time necessary to benefit from the ARE reduced by one month (from 6 to 5 months over the last 24 months). This cannot come into force “because it requires a legal basis”specifies Unédic.

Likewise, cross-border workers should be able to breathe. The measure allowing the application of a coefficient proportional to the salary level of the State of employment on the remuneration taken into account for the calculation of the ARE cannot be adopted being “considered to be contrary to European Regulation No. 883/2004”.