New Legislation | In brief: The Digital Labor Code is officially launched

Published on : 12/02/2020 12 February Feb 02 2020

Doing business in France requires keeping up to speed with the quickly evolving and growing legislation. Whether it’s Labor Law, Tax, Social Security, or other, we’re here to guide you through the new rules of the game

In brief: The Digital Labor Code is officially launched
On January 1, 2020, the Digital Labor Code created by the Macron ordinances of September 22, 2017 was officially launched at the following address: https: //code.travail.gouv.fr .
This service, offered free of charge by the Ministry of Labor, aims to provide “personalized responses on employment law” to employees and employers covered by the Labor Code, by mobilizing the texts applicable to their situation: legal and regulatory provisions but also contractual stipulations of branch, enterprise or establishment (provided they have been published). In the event of a dispute, the employer or employee who avails himself of the information obtained with this tool is presumed to be of good faith.
 
In depth: New thresholds in the New Year
Changes in staff thresholds since January 1
There are new staff thresholds since 1 January 2020.This is a consequence of the loi Pacte of 22 May 2019.
The workforce thresholds are used, in particular, to set the obligations of companies with respect to social security bodies or those to be implemented with respect to employees.
The changes can be summarized in three points:
 
  1. The reduction in the number of thresholds
Three thresholds are now in focus: the thresholds of 11, 50 and 250 employees. As a result, certain thresholds are raised.
Labour law obligation New threshold
Company handbook ≥ 50 (instead of 20)
Place to eat on premises  ≥ 50 (instead of 20)
FNAL Contribution  (0.50%) ≥ 50 (instead of 20)
Employer’s contribution to construction ≥ 50 (instead of 20)
 
Important clarification: certain obligations will continue to apply to companies that were subject to them in 2019, even though these companies would not meet the new threshold condition set on 1 January 2020.
For example, companies that had a restaurant premises before 1 January in application of the old texts will have to keep these premises until 31 December 2024, even if they employ fewer than 50 employees.
  1. Counting rules
The second new feature is the modification of the methods for counting the number of employees.
From now on, the average annual number of employees from the previous calendar year is taken into account.
In concrete terms, the exact number of employees is calculated for each month of the previous calendar year and then averaged to determine the number of employees to be used for the following year.
  1. Crossing thresholds effect
Lastly, the Loi Pacte establishes a mechanism to mitigate threshold effects. This change was much-awaited by companies.
In concrete terms, a threshold can now only be considered to have been crossed if it has been reached for five consecutive calendar years. In other words, only companies that have permanently exceeded a threshold will be subject to additional obligations.
In the same logic, when a company experiences a decrease in the number of employees that brings it below a threshold over a calendar year, it will only be subject to new threshold obligations again if it exceeds that threshold again for 5 calendar years.
Other points of vigilance: certain obligations retain specific procedures for counting the number of employees. This is the case, for example, for the appointment of a trade union delegate or for the determination of the CSE's attributions in companies employing at least 50 employees.

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