France: The Loi Pacte’s staff thresholds are now law

There are new staff thresholds as of 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 summarised 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 have been raised.

2) The second new feature introduced by the Loi Pacte 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 will be taken into account.

3) 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.

For more information on these articles or any other issues involving labour and employment matters in France, please contact Joël Grangé (Partner) of Flichy Grangé Avocats at grange@flichy.com or visit www.flichygrange.com.