Tunisia is actively working on a law to introduce a system of insurance against the loss of employment due to economic reasons. A draft of the proposed law was discussed by the country's cabinet in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kamel Madouri earlier this month.
The draft includes compensation for loss of wages, social security benefits, especially health insurance and cash grants, as well as access to vocational guidance programmes in the country. These guidance programmes are likely to cover training, rehabilitation and reintegration during the period of unemployment of workers made redundant for economic reasons. These would help to reintegrate them into the economic cycle according to a statement issued by the prime minister’s office.
Initiating discussion on the issue Mr Madouri said this proposal has stemmed from the decision announced by the President of the Republic on 1 September 2024 to create a fund to insure job losses for economic reasons.
Mr Madouri said the nature and depth of the economic and structural changes taking place in the world of work require progress in the drafting of a renewed social contract that meets the requirements of protecting workers, enabling institutions to withstand and absorb these changes and strengthening professional relations.
According to media reports all the technical conditions and guarantees necessary for the success of the project have been put in place, particularly the governance of its management and the guarantee of its financial sustainability.
Mr Madouri said that the creation of this insurance system is part of the implementation of the provisions of the Tunisian constitution relating to the values and principles of social justice and the guarantee of decent working conditions, through the creation of an alternative mechanism that guarantees professional and social assistance to workers made redundant for economic reasons during their redundancy and their reintegration into the economic cycle.
"This system is another building block that strengthens the project of establishing the national social protection floor, in implementation of the International Labour Organisation recommendation 202 of 2012, which Tunisia has ratified. It also supports social gains, especially for wage earners, notably at the level of increasing wages and minimum wages."