Since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, long-term unemployment has been higher across developed economies. The Zero Long Term Unemployment Territories experiment with implementing a Job Guarantee, albeit geographically limited for the moment, with the engagement of public sector, community, and private sector stakeholders. In 2023, it was announced that 50 new zones will be added to the program. There were 68 territories as of April 2024 (1).
The program operates on the principles that no one is unemployable, there is no shortage of work, and there is no lack of money. The French constitution promises “the duty to work and the right to obtain a job,” (3).
Promoters recognized that involuntary unemployment was a waste of talent that could be put to use for the public purpose (2). Society already pays for the many direct and indirect costs of unemployment.
2,960 as of February 2024 and 3,889 people hired in EBE since 2017 (5). See a map created by the project featuring employee data of different territories at https://etcld.fr/les-territoires/.
Long term unemployed and resident of the territory for more than 6 months (6).
At least minimum wage (EUR 1,776.92 per month as of January 2024) (7).
EUR 30 million from the state. State contributes EUR 18,000 per year per job. The remainder comes from grants, bank support, and revenue of program companies. A study commissioned in 2017 calculated the cost of unemployment to be as much as EUR 19,000 per year and cost-savings are reallocated to the TZCLD (8).
Program is run in at least 60 territories and funding is distributed by the public Territorial Experimentation Fund (9). The Local Committee for Employment (CLE) designates the collective of local actors and actresses who lead the right to employment in the territory. It is chaired by the local elected referent (Mayor, President of the community of municipalities...) and brings together all the volunteer actors of the territory to implement the right to employment. The CLE is responsible for: The maintenance of consensus among stakeholders; Achieving unity by coordinating the actors and actresses of the territory and developing tools conducive to the elimination of job deprivation; Monitoring the jobs created by employment-oriented companies to ensure that these jobs do not destroy existing public or private jobs; The evaluation of the project, whether through local procedures or by contributing to the assessment conducted by the Experimentation Fund or to the research approaches coordinated by the TZCLD Observatory. In support of this political and strategic body, the "project team" provides leadership and territorial engineering work (10).
Tailored to the needs of the territory. Includes ecological transition (farm work, recycling, and limiting food waste), local development (local business and tourism), and social cohesion (tailoring, assisting at-need people, charity food pantries, etc.) (11).
23% of EBE employees are disabled. The program resulted in a reduction in income precarity and the need for additional social support, improved educational outcomes for children of program participants, and improved health outcomes for program participants (12).