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Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122) - France (RATIFICATION: 1971)

1. The Committee has taken note of the Government's report for the period ending June 1990 and of the attached documents dealing in particular with the results of the employment policies in 1989. Referring to the information supplied by the Government and the data given in the reports and studies of OECD, the Committee observes that the sustained growth of economic activity enabled total employment to increase by 1.2 per cent in 1989 and by 1.1 per cent in 1990, while the unemployment rate (standardised by OECD) was reduced from 10 per cent in 1988 to 9 per cent in 1990. Since the end of the period covered by the report, however, employment has virtually ceased to grow owing to the fall-off in performance of the economy, and in 1991 the unemployment rate increased sharply to 9.8 per cent. The unemployment rate is still higher in France than in most other OECD countries which have ratified the Convention, and the duration of unemployment there remains a source of concern. Long-term unemployment (for a year or more) still accounts for 44 to 45 per cent of total unemployment; while slightly down among young people, it has grown worse for workers in the peak-activity age groups, an increasing proportion of whom have been unemployed for over three years. Workers with few skills form a category particularly sensitive to the unfavourable trend of employment and unemployment. The trend towards dualism in the labour market, which was noted in the previous comments, appears to be persisting.

2. The Government explains in its report the main lines pursued by its employment policy, whose priorities are: to avert difficulties of employment management at undertaking level by helping undertakings to foresee their labour problems and respond to them, in particular by measures to train their employees; to promote employment under a policy of backing local economic development and supporting the creation of new activities; and to simplify and rationalise the machinery of assistance in the integration of jobseekers by involving local actors more closely in their management, improving the quality of the actions undertaken and concentrating efforts in favour of the groups most exposed to the risk of exclusion, such as people who have been unemployed for more than three years, older unemployed persons and persons in receipt of the "minimum integration income" (RMI).

3. The Committee notes the information concerning the incidence of the various measures taken along these lines. The arrangements for preventing dismissals and for reclassifying dismissed workers have been strengthened in pursuit of the policy of backing restructuring. Measures of assistance to unemployed persons who set up or take over undertakings made a 17 per cent contribution to the creation of undertakings in 1989. Half of the 71,000 jobs filled in that year under the system of exemption from social contributions for the engagement of a first employee went to unemployed persons. As to the arrangements for assistance in the training and integration of jobseekers, the return-to-employment contract, a new form of incentive for the engagement of long-term unemployed persons, made it possible by the end of October 1990 to reintegrate 83,000 unemployed persons, 46 per cent of them under contracts of indefinite duration. By the same date, 230,000 young people had been recruited on alternate training contracts, in most cases of limited duration. The "employment solidarity contract", for its part, enabled public agencies or associations to take on 177,000 persons between February and October 1990 for a fixed term. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would continue to supply detailed information on the results achieved by these various programmes and to state in particular how far they contribute to the effective and lasting integration of the beneficiaries in employment.

4. The Committee appreciates the information supplied by the Government but observes that it deals exclusively with specific policies of employment and labour market management. It appears that in recent years these policies alone have not made it possible to advance towards the objective of full employment, whereas the objective of "competitive disinflation" pursued by means of restrictive macroeconomic policies seems largely to have been attained, judging by the difference in inflation rates for those of the main OECD countries. With reference to its previous observations, the Committee would be grateful if the Government would supply in its next report full information calculated to enable it to assess the way in which the Convention as a whole is applied. It again asks the Government to indicate, in response to the questions in the report form, the measures taken or contemplated to give effect to the fundamental provisions of the Convention, among which Article 1 asks each Member to declare and pursue, "as a major goal", an active policy designed to promote full, productive and freely chosen employment, while Article 2 provides that the measures to be adopted for attaining those objectives should be decided on and kept under review "within the framework of a coordinated economic and social policy". The Committee further asks the Government to explain how representatives of the persons affected, and in particular representatives of employers and workers, are consulted concerning employment policies "with a view to taking fully into account their experience and views and securing their full cooperation in formulating and enlisting support for such policies", as required by Article 3 of the Convention.