Employment of older people: Dussopt wants to raise the age for receiving longer unemployment benefits from 55 to 57

With this measure, he hopes to increase the employment of older people. Labor Minister Olivier Dussop said this Sunday that he wants to raise by two years the age of access to longer benefits for older unemployed people.

The maximum duration of unemployment insurance compensation for unemployed people is currently 18 months until age 52, 22.5 months for those aged 53-54, and 27 months for those aged 55 and older.

“We would like to see this increase in the length of employment of older job seekers moved up by two years, from 55 to 57, to be in line with what we have done in relation to the pension age, and because we know that one of the problems Full employment in France means employing older people,” Olivier Dussop said in the program Political Affairs (France Inter, France Télévisions and Le Monde).

The main pension reform measure being implemented in 2023 is to increase the legal retirement age by two years, to 64 years.

Against shortening the period for payment of compensation

At the end of November, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire considered that increasing compensation for those over 55 was a way of “early retirement for those over 55.” He said he wants to reduce the length of their compensation compared to other unemployed people – from 27 to 18 months.

According to Olivier Dussopt, “the issue is not so much the duration (of compensation), but rather that we don’t have systems” that encourage “taking older people out of the labor market.” He recalled that the employment rate of older people in France is much lower than the European average.

The two-year increase in age limits must be “accompanied by vocational training,” the labor minister said.

Defense of ordinary termination

He also defended traditional attrition, a system that again should not be used to “leave older people out of the labor force early.”

“Routine termination is a turnover tool, and there are 500,000 of them a year,” he said. “Year after year, the share of routine terminations as a reason for ending a permanent contract has remained stable at 11% to 12%,” he explained.

“We want to find means” to ensure that “ordinary dismissal is not used as a tool for the exit of older people from the labor market, but remains an instrument of fluidity, freedom” and mutual agreement between the employee and his employer, the minister detailed.