€430m bid to get jobless into work
Sarkozy "crisis summit" unveils help on short-term working, help with retraining, reduced social charges on young staff
URGENT measures to combat worsening unemployment were a key result of a four-hour "crisis summit" as President Sarkozy met unions at the Elysée.
Costing €430 million, they include helping employers to introduce short-term working, helping workers with retraining, reducing social charges for businesses who hire young workers and employing 1,000 new staff on short-term jobs at the Pôle Emploi job centre.
Sarkozy said the new measures would begin at the start of February as the worsening job market needed "strong and rapid responses". Coming just three months before the presidential election he said that "despite the political calendar" they could not do nothing.
New moves to improve competitivity will be revealed before the end of the month with a much-leaked proposal to cut employers' social charges and load an extra 2% on VAT. He will also announce details of the new tax on financial transactions.
Sarkozy said that putting all the load on employers' costs made French jobs more expensive than elsewhere - particularly Germany.
However, unions do not agree. They say it does nothing to cut unemployment and is just a gift to employers. CGT leader Bernard Thibault said the job situation was getting worse: "The president is convinced it’s explained by higher French labour costs. I showed him otherwise. President Sarkozy's diagnosis is not correct."
Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande said changing tax rates would not make France more competitive; investment in the future and in training was the key.
The new measures include €100m to allow short-term working and temporary lay-offs in a bid to stop companies laying-off staff permanently; €100m for a 12-month reduction in social charges on hiring new staff aged under 26 (a measure which Sarkozy hopes will mean 17,000 new jobs), €190m to fund retraining programmes and €40m to employ 1,000 more job centre staff to clear queues and give better training to the jobless, especially the long-term jobless.
The costs will be found from within present budgets and will not increase the government's budget deficit.
