With the postponement of the retirement age from 62 to 64 provided for by the reform announced on Tuesday, the government also intends to increase the employment rate of seniors, which stood at 56% in 2021. It hopes in particular change the behavior of companies thanks to a “senior index”, mandatory in large companies from 2023. “L’Obs” takes stock of this still unclear measure.
• Why this “index”?
The “senior index” is based on the same principle as the gender equality index, and will ask companies to communicate the proportion of seniors they employ. The indicators that will be used to set up this index will be “defined following an interprofessional consultation”said the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt this Wednesday, January 11.
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It must be implemented by companies with more than 1,000 employees from 2023 and by those with more than 300 employees in 2024 and “will make it possible to promote good practices and denounce bad ones”according to the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne.
“We put the employment of seniors as a compulsory subject of negotiation, within the framework of the management of jobs and career paths”, explained Olivier Dussopt.
• Will there be penalties?
The publication of this index will be mandatory, said Olivier Dussopt and government spokesman Olivier Véran. Olivier Dussopt indicated on RTL that “refusal to fill in the index will be grounds for sanction” financial. This penalty will be “calculated as a percentage of payroll” of the companies concerned, as is already the case for the index on professional equality between women and men, he specified.
On the other hand, companies where the employment of seniors does not progress will not be sanctioned, but they will be the subject of a “reinforced obligation to negotiate a social agreement” in order to improve the situation, the Minister also added.
• What are the reactions to this measure?
The index was received with reluctance both on the side of the PS and the unions. The Medef had already expressed its opposition on several occasions “on the principle of a senior index”. Its president, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, cited the example of“a company that hires a lot of apprentices and therefore mathematically sees its percentage of seniors reduce”and that “will be classified as bad”.
The secretary general of the CGT Philippe Martinez estimated that “It’s not an index that will scare employers who every year lay off hundreds, thousands of employees who are over 57, over 58 years old”. Same mistrust on the side of Laurent Berger at the CFDT: “There will be the report and what will we do? We are going to act […] in companies to tell the boss: the employment rate for seniors is not good, it must be increased. But there are no penalties.he lamented.
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The confederal president of the CFE-CGC described a “smokescreen” while companies are “honed for 20 years doing redundancy carts […] from 58 years old »added François Hommeril (CFE-CGC).
Quoted by AFP, Benoît Serre, vice-president of the National Association of HRDs (ANDRH), suggests that these indicators include the “rate of access to training”, “internal mobility” Where “hiring rate” people over 55. “But it’s not the index that will solve the problem on its own, we need public policies on the side, on the model of the “one young person, one solution” plan. Otherwise, we will just shift the problem: today, it is the 57-58 year olds who have difficulty finding a job. Tomorrow, it will be 61-62 years old.he predicted.
