Medef expressed its concern on Friday about a possible “negative shock to competitiveness”, following the adoption in committee of an amendment to the Social Security budget that eliminates exemptions from family contributions for salaries between 2.5 and 3, 5 minimum wages. “Suppressing these reductions would inevitably cause a negative impact on the competitiveness of French companies” and would be “contradictory to the desire to reindustrialize our economy and position it in high value-added services,” estimates the French Business Movement in a statement. .
The amendment adopted on Thursday, approved by the Renaissance deputy Marc Ferracci, abolishes, for salaries between 2.5 and 3.5 SMIC, the exemptions from employer contributions, known as “family bandeau”, a reduction of 1, 8 points of family contributions. He plans to allocate the 1.6 billion euros that this measure would provide to salary exemptions of between 1 and 1.64 SMIC, to “create several tens of thousands of jobs, especially in industry”, and without, according to him, affecting to competitiveness.
Bruno Le Maire defends the reduction of sentences
Medef maintains, on the contrary, that “the initial objective of the ‘family flag’ was effectively to create a competitive shock”, with foreign companies, “due to the increase in labor costs in France.” These reductions, according to the first employers’ union, “have contributed to stopping the flight of our young engineers who leave the Grandes Écoles, going from 18.1% in 2013 who leave France as soon as they obtain their degree to 13.8% in 2019 “.
Medef fears “an increase in labor costs that further accentuates our difference with Germany” and a risk for “the activities most affected by international competition.” He emphasizes that the 1.6 billion are today dedicated “to investment, remuneration, training, as well as improving skills and attracting talents.” However, the adoption of the Ferracci amendment in committee does not guarantee that it will appear in the Social Security budget.
He seemed to prefer an intermediate solution, involving the setting of a maximum wage beyond which there would be no further relief, rather than multiples of a periodically re-evaluated minimum wage: “It is an option to avoid a sudden increase in costs for the State, ” he said.
Source: BFM TV
