12 Measures from the Cercle des économistes to Rehabilitate Work in Europe and France

AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France, July 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Final Statement - 15^th Rencontres Économiques d'Aix-en-Provence 2015  

Amid technology, demography and environment shocks, work must evolve. However, far from vanishing, as some claim, work will remain, if practiced in decent conditions, a vector of progress, self-fulfillment and social bonding.

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In Europe, a unified labour market must be the heart of our political ambition, to rebalance the single market for goods and capital:

1. Encouraging intra-European mobility, through mutual recognition of qualifications or coordinated publicity of vacancies 

2. Allow anyone to preserve his/her social safety nets beyond borders and create a common unemployment insurance in the Eurozone 

3. Make vocational training for the least educated a major European ambition, by supporting the Erasmus Pro project 

4. Build a single market for the digital economy, to make Europe a technological pioneer 

5. Coordinate immigration policies in Europe to better attract the best qualified and integrate the least well trained  

In France, we must build a second chance society, and welcome technological change and globalization. Everything should be on the table, as long as we value individual initiatives, rethink our social safety nets, and develop a representative dialogue within companies:

6. Shift the focus of the « Responsibility Compact » on low wages to kick-start low-qualification job creation 

7. Ensure purchasing power through a basic income preserving incentive to take a job. This would imply merging the « Personal Housing Allocation », the Active Solidarity Revenue, and the Activity Premium. The counterpart would be a freeze of the minimum wage, until unemployment falls below a more acceptable threshold. 

8. Create a progressive and protective labour contract, and secure breakups of the employment relationship by removing the « serious motive » for a layoff. 

9. Deregulate the most job-creating markets, especially by opening up closed professions and expanding building land 

10. Structure the market for on-the-job training, to make it a true « second chance factory », through the individualisation of the training choice 

11. Make company agreements the building block of labour norms, and allow any worker, even if not unionized, to be the representative of his fellow workers 

12. Build social safety nets adapted to the new configurations of work in the digital era, through a restructuring of social security regimes for independents, and an increase in the sales threshold for the « self-entrepreneur » status 

You will find the full text of the Final Statement at: 

http://lesrencontreseconomiques.fr/2015/declaration-finale-du-cercle-economistes/

SOURCE The Rencontres économiques d'Aix-en-Provence 2015 and Cercle des économistes