Les conséquences des allégements généraux de cotisations patronales sur les bas salaires

The general reduction of employer social contributions on low wages is the main employment policy in France with an annual expenditure of about 1 per cent of GDP. This study shows that low skilled jobs in services are the main beneficiaries of this measure. We estimate that removing the part of this relief linked to the 35-hour week would destroy about 400,000 jobs ; lowering the exit point of the measure to 1.5 instead of 1.6 times the minimum wage would eliminate about 50,000 jobs ; restricting the relief to the industry would result in a loss of about 700,000 jobs ; and restricting the relief to businesses with fewer than 50 employees would destroy about 380,000 jobs. Thus, from the point of view safeguarding employment there is no basis to restrict the benefit of the relief only to sectors directly exposed to international competition, or to SMEs only.