“The dishes and the serving are finished. Before it was terrible months, impossible hours and zero pay, but at least there was unemployment behind it, just to make money. With the new reform, I give up my apron. “This summer, Christophe, a 24-year-old student, will for once enjoy the beach and mojitos instead of returning to his traditional seasonal work.
This is the application on 1 July of the government’s new social security fund reform, the third in five years. It will now be necessary to have worked eight months – instead of six previously – over a period of 20 months against 24. The government defends the thesis that unemployment must be made less “attractive” in order to pressure the unemployed to apply. “But what this reform does is make employment less attractive,” complains the young Nîmes man. Work like an ox for three months to not be protected behind and end up with zero euros… We are not hams. »
A reform that makes seasonal employment more uncertain
The same feeling for Léa, for whom the reduction in duration looks like a real disaster: “From 24 to 20 months it may seem like a detail, but it changes everything. My summer job from two years ago will no longer count towards qualifying for unemployment, making me ineligible. “There will be no vacancy in September 2024, which risks complicating his studies: “I managed to work in the summer so as not to have to work alongside my studies for the rest of the year. There is no choice, I have to work part-time and no longer have a social life for the rest of my education. »
Bruno Coquet, doctor of economics and president of Uno Etudes & Conseil, a consulting and expertise firm on employment and public policies, is also skeptical. “It is a reform that excludes young people who are interested in seasonal jobs, students who work occasionally… The levers activated by the government make a large part of the population, which is already vulnerable in the labor market and purchasing power, insecure. »
Employers are losing their appeal
Christine Erhel, director of the Center for the Study of Employment and Labor and professor at Cnam, points out the irony of history: “Seasonal jobs or short contracts affect professions that already have recruitment difficulties – agriculture, catering, hospitality. “The reform risks hitting them hard too. Patrick, bar manager The black sheep in Montpellier, remembers with nostalgia: “In 2019, it only took four months of work before we got unemployment. » A time not so long ago, but which he greatly regrets: “The pay didn’t have to be incredible, and we knew we were helping the students. It was give and take. Today we cannot increase wages and we cannot promise unemployment, it is a bit difficult to attract. »
Léa is preparing to make her last contract this summer: “I was committed and I’m not going to say no. But now the game is no longer worth it, especially if I already spend the rest of the year working, might as well rest a bit in the summer to recover »
An impact that is difficult to measure
Are we going to spend this summer without waiters, beach attendants or McDonald’s employees? Yannick L’Horty, professor of economics at Paris-Est and associated researcher at the Center for Employment Studies (CEE), nuances: “It will certainly take eight months of employment, but not necessarily cumulatively. Seasonal employment is therefore still interesting, you just have to do more of them, or find another job, to get free time. » As for the limitation of the duration, he does not see there necessarily a rejection of seasonal employment either: “On the contrary, one could think that it will make any employment attractive, because it will be necessary to rush to accumulate a lot in a short time. »
Christine Ehrel elaborates: “It is difficult to measure the effect of such a reform on seasonal employment. This is very heterogeneous, often with several jobs, or already spread over several months. » She continues: “Very, very short jobs have already been given and people are being found, proof that calculating unemployment is not everything. »
And precisely one of the effects of this reform “could be, on the contrary, to pressure employers to offer longer contracts, in order to be more attractive”. A beautiful scenario, which Léa is skeptical about: “Employers are ready to do everything to recruit, but to the point of being able to extend the summer by four months to get into the main points of the unemployment reform, I like to have doubts. »
