Job seekers: new sanctions for non-compliance with the employment contract

The decree published in Official Journal of 31 May 2025, on penalties applicable to jobseekers for failure to fulfill their obligations, introduces new rules. This follows on from the law on full employment of 18 December 2023, which entered into force on 1 December^er January 2025.

The penalties provided for in the new decree apply to persons who fail to comply with their obligations contract of employment. The aim of the scheme is to “promote re-mobilization” and not to break the “support relationship”, says the Ministry of Labor.

The text specifies what these breaches are about: ‘failure to draw up or update a contract of employment, failure to comply with obligations relating to attendance, active participation in the actions provided for in the action plan and the obligation to undertake positive and repeated acts with a view to finding a job’.

The system of penalties is replaced by a logic of proportionate, gradual, non-automatic and reversible sanctions ”.

The type of penalty (notification of first failure TO fulfill obligations OR suspension OR withdrawal of the allowance or income and, where appropriate, removal from the list of jobseekers), the duration of the penalty and the amount or rate applicable to the income or allowance concerned shall be determined on the basis of:

• the non-compliance found;
• the frequency of the non-compliance;
• the nature of the income or allowance;
• and, where appropriate, the situation of the jobseeker.

An applicant sanctioned with a total or partial suspension of income or allowance shall continue to be accompanied by his or her point of contact. Once he has complied with the obligations on which the suspension penalty is based, the penalty may be lifted and the payment of the income or allowance may resume from the date of validation of the remobilization.