Law No. 2025-989 of October 24, 2025 amends several provisions of the Labor Code to facilitate the recruitment of experienced job seekers and support their retention in employment. New provisions on unemployment insurance and the employee's transition to employment are also introduced.

Creation of the contract for the valorization of experience

An experience development contract is an open-ended contract between a company and a person who meets the following conditions at the time of hiring:

• be at least 60 years of age (or at least 57 years of age in the case of an agreement or branch agreement providing for it);
• be a jobseeker;
• not to receive a full retirement pension (this condition does not apply to military personnel, seamen, former employees of the mine pension scheme and ballet artists under the pension fund of the Paris National Opera);
• not have been employed in the company concerned (or in a company of the same group) during the previous 6 months.

This contract is created on an experimental basis for a period of 5 years.

A better career transition

The professional interview between the employer and the employee is also reformed by this law. He is now appointed ‘career path interview’.

This interview must take place during the 1^era year after hiring, then every 4 years. It covers the following elements:

• the skills of the employee and the qualifications mobilized in his present job but also, from now on, on their possible evolution given the transformations of the company;
• the situation and career path of the employee, in the light of changes in the professions and job prospects in the company;
• the training needs of the employee, which is new. They may concern his present professional activity, his job in view of the transformation of the company or a personal project;
• wishes for professional development. The interview can now pave the way for internal or external retraining, a career transition project, a skills assessment or a validation of experience acquired;
• the activation by the employee of his personal training account, the payments made to this account by the employer and career development advice.

An inventory of the employee's career path must be conducted every 8 years (instead of 6 years previously).

Obligation to negotiate on the employment of seniors in the branches

The law imposes an obligation on branches and companies with at least 300 employees to negotiate on the jobs and work of “experienced employees”.

Negotiations, which must take place at least every 4 years, must include:

• the recruitment of such employees;
• their retention in employment;
• end-of-career arrangements (in particular arrangements for support for gradual or part-time retirement);
• the transmission of their knowledge and skills.

New provisions on retirement and part-time work for senior employees

Progressive retirement: strengthening the grounds for refusal by the employer

The employer who refuses the employee to benefit from phased retirement must now give more reasons for its refusal.

Thus, in addition to the incompatibility between the working time requested by the employee and the economic activity of the company, that refusal must also be justified by:

• the consequences of the reduction in the working time requested on the continuity of the company's (or service's) activity;
• difficulties encountered in recruiting for the position concerned (if the consequences involve recruitment).

Advance payment of the employee's part-time retirement benefit

The law now allows a company agreement (or, failing that, an agreement or branch agreement) to provide for the possibility of allocating the retirement allowance to the total or partial maintenance of the employee's remuneration at the end of his career.

The employee in question must have requested and obtained, in agreement with his employer, the part-time or reduced-time transition.

In addition, ‘if the amount of severance pay that would have been due at the time he claims his pension rights is greater than the amount of the sums allocated to his maintenance of remuneration, the remainder shall be paid to the employee’.

Extension of retirement conditions for senior employees

In order to encourage the hiring of senior employees on permanent contracts, the compulsory retirement the employee is now possible for the employee hired when he had already reached the age required to automatically benefit from a full pension.

ESC: end of term limit

In order to preserve the union's commitment and to compensate for the absence of candidates, the law of 24 October 2025 ends the limit of 3 successive terms for employees elected to the CSE: titleContent.

Impact on the unemployment insurance bonus-malus

From 1^er in march 2026, dismissals for gross or serious misconduct as well as dismissals for unprofessional incapacity will be excluded from the calculation of the unemployment insurance bonus-malus.

This device applies to companies with 11 or more employees belonging to sectors of activity with an average separation rate of more than 150%

Unemployment insurance: change in conditions of previous employment

The law transposes the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Convention of 15 November 2024. Thus, the minimum period of affiliation for unemployment insurance is reduced to 5 months for the jobseeker have never received the insurance allowance or have not received it for 20 years.

As a reminder, this minimum duration is set at 6 months for all job seekers.