The youth minimum income fails in France

Nothing new in the figures: France has one of the highest youth unemployment rates among developed countries, with more than 23% of those aged 15 to 24 unable to find work, according to 2010 second semester figures from France’s National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee).

And nothing new in the measures: the extension of the “revenu de solidarité active” (RSA) to young workers simply failed, whether it was launched just 5 months ago! Only 5,024 young people benefited from it. The initial objective was 160,000 youth…

But is it surprising? Not at all! The rules are just too strict. To receive the “RSA jeunes”, applicants must be in paid employment and must have worked full-time for at least two of the past three calendar years. Thus, 150,000 low-skilled young people are immediately excluded from the system. But graduated students too, as no one is able to go to university and work at full time in parallel.

Moreover, if the RSA, which replaced the RMI (“revenu minimum d’insertion”) last summer, is designed to give people an incentive to find work, the eligibility criteria are stricter for youth than those applied to older RSA recipients.  Martin Hirsch, former High Commissioner for Active Solidarities who presented the measure in September 2009 pledged vainly for relaxed criteria. His cabinet simply disappeared six month later.

While Nicolas Sarkozy is already in his last couple of months before the 2012 presidential elections, youth unemployment should be raised among his priorities. After the last meaningless reshuffle of his government, Sarkozy stressed the issue among his few commitments. But who can believe the problem will be solved in such a short period?

For the past 30 years, none of the measures to encourage youth employment succeeded. When, in 2006, then Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin proposed a law that would produce flexible contracts for young employees – making it easier to hire as well as fire them – thousands of university students demonstrated for two months against the measure. The legislation was simply withdrawn.

But nevertheless, Insee’s figures are worrying: in July 2010, 109,000 young people under 25 years old were looking for a job for at least one year. An increase by 72% in only two years!