On Tuesday 20 June, the research team that carried out the évaluation of the revamped support scheme for RSA recipients presented its findings at a press conference.
This project was carried out in partnership with Dares. The report was published online following the conference.
In the run-up to the Full Employment Act (LPE), which comes into force on 1 January 2025, a pilot scheme for a revamped support programme for RSA recipients was rolled out across 18 regions between March 2023 and December 2024. It mainly involved offering certain RSA recipients, whilst their entitlement remained unchanged, more intensive support that was more focused on employment.
This evaluation assessed not only the direct effects of the revamped support scheme on participants in the pilot scheme, but also the indirect effects on other jobseekers in the pilot areas and the corresponding commuting zones.
Here are the key findings:
- The pilot scheme foreshadows the Full Employment Act, but was carried out under existing legislation: it does not incorporate all the provisions that came into force in 2025, in particular the new system of sanctions.
- The trial, carried out without any increase in funding for France Travail, has indeed brought about changes in the support practices observed amongst RSA recipients supported by France Travail, primarily through an increase in the number of interviews.
- Participants experience an improvement in their employment trajectory, particularly in terms of long-term employment. These effects, which were more pronounced among the first cohorts, may reflect an initial selection of beneficiaries who were already closer to employment, as well as a reduction in the intensity of the scheme as it was rolled out.
- Subsidised contracts account for a large proportion of the impact on employment: nearly two-thirds of the impact on participants’ long-term employment stems from access to these contracts.
- An overall assessment of the scheme does not reveal any significant net effect on employment: the increase in employment observed amongst participants is offset by spillover effects on other RSA recipients within the commuting zone where the trial is being conducted.
- The évaluation therefore suggests that the pilot scheme – which was carried out with France Travail’s existing resources and against a backdrop of limited funding for subsidised contracts – as a targeted reallocation of support services and opportunities for a return to work towards participants, rather than as a scheme designed to achieve net job creation in the short term.
