Rupture conventionnelle, destructions d'emplois et licenciements : une analyse empirique sur données d'entreprises (2006-2009).

In 2008, a new legal termination of long-term contract (CDI) called “the rupture conventionnelle” was enacted. The aim of this article is first to analyze the impact of this new termination on the employers' fire decisions and then to provide empirical evidence of a substitution between the “rupture conventionnelle” and other terminations. Using two matched firms' datasets, one from workers'movement data (EMMO-DMMO) and another from accounting data (EAE), our database includes a firms' sample over four consecutive years from 2006 to 2009. We use the difference-in-differences method combined with a propensity score matching to control selection bias and thus to create two similar firms' groups: those that used the “rupture conventionnelle” and those not. Our main results indicate that the introduction of the “rupture conventionnelle” in crisis times tends to increase workforce exits and many more job destruction. However, we do not find any evidence of a substitution between the RC and the firing for personal reasons, which have become more expensive and riskier.