What if the system encouraged more hiring rather than more taxing? (updated on 1 April 2013). It is the companies that hire (especially small and young ones, see OECD report), create wealth and permanent employment, what a scoop! So, rather than desperately helping companies and sectors that are doing badly, let's help those ... that don't need help! ... funny idea? not so much.

Unemployment not only persists but is increasing, inexorably, dramatically. Faced with this scourge, the government, the governments, seem overwhelmed, even powerless, seeking to fill the gaps in the social plans or recreating public jobs, as if to compensate. Like the southerners in "Gone with the Wind", helplessly facing Atlanta devoured by flames, we sometimes have the feeling that unemployment is as much a part of the crisis as anything else...

For their part, companies, which everyone knows (or recognises, as an admission) that they are the solution to employment, are suffering from a lack of competitiveness, are reaching critical thresholds, and are calling on public opinion and the ruling class to become aware of this. It is now a hurricane warning that is being issued by small and large bosses.

To make matters worse, our political and social context, anchored in philosophical and dogmatic convictions, stirs up and regenerates class and party struggles, often making arguments inaudible and conversation impossible. For some, the "pigeons" become "vultures" or "whiners", especially when at the same time, in a joyful amalgam, others recall dividend distribution figures that may, admittedly, be at odds with the context.

In the end, we end up with this idea of taxing again and again, households and companies, as if the tax whip would allow the horse that carries us to move faster. The tax frenzy has now even turned into a " what is the point of taxation?" 

So, as the time is ripe for open letters and giant brainstorming, here is a contribution to try to see things differently, by reversing the gaze to try to find a virtuous circle of job creation.

Rather than taxing and envying success, it should be encouraged and envied.

Rather than trying to artificially support companies and sectors in difficulty, let's help those who have prospects to have greater ones, because there are companies that are hiring or need to hire! These companies have prospects and are proactive. They are developing companies, locomotives for the whole of society. The idea of the virtuous circle is toencouraging more growth rather than trying to curb the crisis The more I hire, the more I gain from hiring, with a marginal cost that decreases as the hiring process progresses. This is a way of revaluing companies as citizens, as partners in employment. We only talk about social plans, we never talk about hiring plans!

Unemployment should not be reduced, but employment should be increased.

The "formula" may seem stupid and easy because it basically says the same thing. In reality, it says it in a radically different way, in an extraordinarily stronger, more positive, less fatalistic way. It says to move forward rather than to erect barricades. Reducing unemployment means trying to preserve jobs that are often lost and pointing the finger at the victimising bosses. Developing employment means setting a positive objective, it means encouraging, it means showing that everything is not black, it means accepting to show that bosses are also recruiters, partners when it is so easy to hand them over to the public.

Every month in the United States we wait for "employment figures", in France for "unemployment figures". We need to change indicators.

The principle is to indicate and identify companies and sectors that are on a positive job creation trend. A display that would also be useful to guide students in their choice of courses and thus combat dead-end courses. We know every month how many new unemployed people there are, but no one knows or talks about how many new people are working! When 10,000 additional unemployed people are announced, no one knows whether this corresponds to 90,000 creations - 100,000 destructions or 10,000 - 20,000! But also, let's be coherent: when we read the rankings or other announcements of companies that say they are recruiting, there again we don't know the balance. However, recruiting 1,000 people because the company has a high turnover and will remain more or less at the same level, or recruiting 1,000 more people because the company is growing, is not the same thing. It is not a question of judging the quality of the recruitment, but of the quality of the information.

CREATION OF THE "SNCE":

Companies must be rewarded for their "loyalty" to employment. Today, there is no lack of accounting, tax and social data to determine whether a company or a sector has a positive or negative employment dynamic. Each company would then have its "SNCE", its Net Job Creation Balance: recruitments - departures. The more positive the NECS is (it can be measured in absolute terms or as an index), the more the company (or the sector) has facilities/assistance/incentives to go even further and faster. It is a kind of public subsidy for employment.

And the more positive this SNCE is, the more the company is a ... EPE, an Employment Partner CompanyThis can be a source of collective internal pride, and even of demand. (Who today can easily, and above all precisely, say or know where such and such a company, or even one's own, stands in terms of employment dynamics?)

Indicators and incentives that can be differentiated by type of contract (SNCE-CDI; SNCE-Apprenticeship; SNCE-Disability, Etc.) / also likely to be calculated by sector, by region, etc. ("The NECS of sector Y is 115...), i.e. a great deal of pedagogical and incentive virtue in a form of positive emulation on employment and indicators of orientation towards the labour markets.

It is also a way of fighting against our logic of thresholds which are barriers to development. These dams must be knocked down, so that we have an interest in going beyond them rather than an interest in stopping there, as is the case today, in the face of this ubiquitous situation: the more I develop, the less I gain from developing... and everyone loses.

So, how about it? Let's give companies the means to show their commitment to employment and, where appropriate, to encourage and congratulate them for this: we must not make name and shame, but name and pride!

-> The responsibility pact does not need a pseudo agreement between the government and companies, the responsibility pact already exists through the role of companies as political actors, and above all the responsibility pact already exists, it is enough to look at the figures, not only to count the hirings, but the net balance, the SNCE, the Net Balance of Job Creation to know if companies are EPEs, Companies Partners for Employment. In absolute value or in index relative to the number of employees (+1 employee at 10 or at 1000 does not have the same value), the SNCE will make it possible to identify EPEs at level E, double E ... or triple E ... to finally reward the companies that experience double-digit growth each year ... in their workforce, and not only in their profits. 

Encourage rather than punish.