The experimentation of the RSA reform made it possible to improve access to employment for people with more support but had no effect on employment in general because the support of other job seekers suffered, according to a study published Tuesday June 30.
This experiment carried out between March 2023 and the end of 2024 resulted in reinforced support for RSA beneficiaries, whether they are monitored by France Travail, the departments or by both.
The rate of return to employment is 25% higher among those who have benefited from this reinforced support than among others, explained Lucie Briand, one of the authors of the study co-published by the Institute of Public Policies (IPP) and Dares, the studies department of the Ministry of Labor.
“This effect is strongly driven by access to subsidized contracts, the rate of subsidized salaried employment doubles compared to before the experiment,” she explained. Subsidized contracts allow the employer to benefit from assistance to reduce the cost of hiring.
“Deterioration of employment prospects for non-participants”
But within the experimental zones, extended to the entire territory on January 1, 2025, this improvement was counterbalanced by “a deterioration of employment prospects for non-participants”, whether they are RSA beneficiaries or other job seekers, whose support has been reduced, France Travail having implemented the reform at constant means.
“The benefits that were observed for the participants are offset by a deterioration in employment prospects for non-participants, so that the overall evaluation of the experiment does not make it possible to highlight a net positive effect on total salaried employment,” explained Lucie Briand.
The researchers, however, stressed that their results were “not mechanically transposable to what has been happening since January 2025” with the full employment law which generalized this reinforced support to all RSA beneficiaries.
Since that date, beneficiary orientation procedures have evolved, a new system of sanctions has been introduced and budgetary constraints have reduced the number of jobs supported. Finally, the time frame of the study did not make it possible to measure whether the subsidized jobs had constituted for their beneficiaries a stepping stone towards non-subsidized and long-term jobs.
