Background information

Introduced as part of the "One young person, one solution" plan, the aid for hiring young people under the age of 26 has been available since 1 August 2020. This scheme allows the employer to benefit from €4,000 in aid over one year for a full-time position (prorated for a part-time position) for people under 26 hired on an open-ended contract or a fixed-term contract of at least three months.

Content of measure

This scheme allows the employer to benefit from a grant of €4,000 over one year for a full-time position (prorated for a part-time position) for people under 26 years of age hired on an open-ended contract or a fixed-term contract of at least three months. It is reserved for the recruitment of young people who have not been part of the employer's workforce from 1 August 2020.

It is reserved for the recruitment of young people who have not been part of the employer's workforce from 1 August 2020 and whose remuneration is less than or equal to twice the hourly amount of the SMIC.

Beneficiaries The aid is reserved for employees under the age of 26. Their age is assessed on the date of conclusion of their employment contract, and not on the date on which it begins to run. Thus, a young person who begins to perform his or her employment contract on the day of his or her 26th birthday will be entitled to the benefit of the aid if he or she concluded the employment contract before turning 26.

Where the recruitment follows a first fixed-term employment contract (CDD) which gave entitlement to the aid, the employer continues to be entitled to it even if the employee has reached the age of 26.

Employers All employers subject to the obligation to register their employees with the unemployment insurance scheme are eligible, regardless of the legal form of the company. The aid is available to public companies listed in the national register of companies with majority state control.

Employers wishing to benefit from the aid must meet the following conditions:

• be up to date with its reporting and payment obligations to the tax authorities and the bodies responsible for collecting social security or unemployment insurance contributions.
• not to have made a redundancy on economic grounds for the position concerned by the recruitment aid since 1 January 2020.

Use of measure

Despite the measure, according to the DARES (Situation sur le marché du travail durant la crise sanitaire au 2 février 2021), for the year 2020 as a whole, the number of hires of young people under 26 years of age on permanent and fixed-term contracts of more than three months is 14.2% lower than that recorded in 2019. This decline is slightly less pronounced than that of the number of hires on permanent or fixed-term contracts of more than three months for all under-30s (-15.8%).

In December 2020, the number of hires of under 26 on permanent and fixed-term contracts of more than three months was 27.4% lower than in December 2019. However, the decline in hires following the second lockdown is significantly less than in the first lockdown (-57.9% between May 2019 and 2020).

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Youth (18-25) in employment	Applies to all businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Trade unions Employers' organisations Public employment service	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Consulted	Consulted
Form	Any other form of consultation, institutionalised (as stable working groups or committees) or informal	Any other form of consultation, institutionalised (as stable working groups or committees) or informal

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• No involvement
• Main level of involvement: Peak or cross-sectoral level

Involvement

Social partners are consulted during the elaboration of such measure.

Views and reactions

Social partners have mainly welcomed the measure to support youth employment, even some point out potential windfall effect.

Sources

• 05 August 2020: Décret n° 2020-982 du 5 août 2020 instituant une aide à l'embauche des jeunes de moins de 26 ans (www.legifrance.gouv.fr)
• 30 January 2021: Décret nº 2021-94 du 30 janvier 2021 relatif à l'aide à l'embauche des jeunes de moins de 26 ans et aux emplois francs (www.legifrance.gouv.fr)
• 23 February 2021: Décret n° 2021-198 du 23 février 2021 relatif aux aides à l'embauche des travailleurs handicapés et des jeunes de moins de 26 ans et aux emplois francs (www.legifrance.gouv.fr)
• 31 March 2021: Décret n° 2021-363 du 31 mars 2021 portant modification et prolongation des aides à l'embauche des jeunes de moins de 26 ans, aux emplois francs et aux employeurs d'apprentis et de salariés en contrat de professionnalisation (www.legifrance.gouv.fr)
• 12 May 2021: DARES (2021) Quels ont été les effets de l’aide à l’embauche des jeunes sur l’emploi des jeunes ? Premières évaluations de l'AEJ (dares.travail-emploi.gouv.fr)