About 5% of 50-64 year olds are unemployed according to INSEE and four out of ten retirees were unemployed the year before their retirement according to the Ministry of Labour. Seniors are not the most affected by unemployment in the population, but finding a job when approaching sixty is most often a waste of time. This is why, in particular the over 55s, are numerous among the long-term unemployed. What are the consequences on retirement for seniors compensated by Pôle emploi?
People aged over 55 registered with Pôle Emploi can, if they meet the conditions for compensation, receive unemployment benefit for a longer period (3 years) than younger unemployed people. This period is two and a half years for unemployed workers aged 53 and 54.
Beyond this period, and if the senior has not reached retirement age, this period of compensation by Pôle emploi may be extended. For this, the unemployed senior must meet several conditions:be in the process of being compensated for at least one year at the age of 62 (the legal retirement age for those born from 1 er January 1955); have been registered with unemployment insurance for 12 years; and have 100 quarters validated for old-age insurance.
This measure allows seniors who have not yet met the conditions for full retirement, i.e. counting between 160 and 172 quarters depending on their year of birth, to continue to receive income in the form compensation from Pôle Emploi. An option that can be interesting if these allowances are higher than the retirement pension they could receive if they did not wait for the age and the conditions to benefit from their full pension.
An unemployed person who is of retirement age but who does not have the number of quarters necessary to benefit from a full-rate pension continues to be compensated by Pôle emploi, if he meets the conditions, and until until he can retire at full rate, or failing that, until age 67. He therefore continues to accumulate quarters (1 per 50 days of unemployment benefit).
In this case, it is the pension funds, in principle, which inform Pôle emploi of the date on which these seniors will be able to retire at full rate. However, vigilance is required because it sometimes happens that pension funds do not have all the right information to exactly trace the career of these seniors and therefore to judge their exact pension insurance period. This can then result in overpayments of allowances that the elderly unemployed person must subsequently reimburse to Pôle emploi.
In all cases, a senior ceases to be compensated by Pôle emploi when he reaches the legal age of full retirement, that is to say between 65 and 67 years depending on his year of birth if he worked. in the private sector. And the senior concerned must file, like all other salaried or self-employed persons, his request for pension liquidation with his old-age insurance schemes.
Regardless of the age of the unemployed registered with Pôle Emploi, since 1980, periods of compensated unemployment have been taken into account for the basic pension (before 1980, these periods did not necessarily have to be compensated by Pôle Emploi).
These periods of unemployment count, in fact, as quarters of pension insurance under the general social security system. Thus, for example, a senior compensated by Pôle emploi for 50 days obtains a quarter of pension insurance, within the limit of 4 quarters per year.
On the other hand, if the periods of compensated unemployment make it possible to acquire quarters, they do not give rise to pension contributions which could increase the amount of the pension. Indeed, the basic pension plan only takes into account the best 25 years of career. As a result, an unemployed senior will receive a lower pension than if he had worked until retirement.
Regarding the supplementary pension, and for seniors who depend on the Agirc-Arrco scheme, pension rights are open to them if they receive one of these allowances paid by Pôle emploi:the return to work (ARE), the professional security allowance (ASP) allocated following redundancy, or the specific solidarity allowance (ASS) for seniors at the end of their rights.
