Purpose
French Labour Cost Lab provides reproducible simulations of gross wages, net wages, employer costs, employer contribution reliefs and social wedges in France.
From net wage to employer cost
Simplified and robust decomposition from net wage to total employer cost.
Interactive figures
From gross wage to employer cost
Compare monthly gross wage, net wage and total employer cost across the wage grid.
Effective employer contribution rate
Employer contribution rates are computed as employer contributions divided by gross wage.
Employer contribution reliefs (RGDU) – before and after the 1 June 2026 reform
Monthly relief amount retrieved directly from the Mon-entreprise / URSSAF API.
Impact of the 1 June 2026 reform on contribution reliefs
Monthly change in RGDU after the June 2026 SMIC increase and the freezing of relief parameters. Exploratory simulation based on currently available Mon-entreprise / URSSAF outputs.
Impact of the relief freeze on employer cost
Estimated monthly increase in employer cost after the SMIC increase and the freezing of relief parameters.
Social wedge as a share of employer cost
The social wedge measures the gap between what the employer pays and what the employee receives.
Employer cost to net wage ratio
This ratio summarizes how many euros the employer pays for one euro of net wage.
Marginal cost of gross wage increases
This chart shows how employer cost and net wage react locally to an additional euro of gross wage.
Total contribution rate on labour
Employee and employer contributions expressed as a share of total employer cost.
Socio-fiscal return of a gross wage increase
Share of one additional euro of gross wage converted into disposable income after employee contributions, estimated personal income tax and estimated in-work benefit. Reference scenario: single taxpayer, 1 tax unit, no other income, no housing benefit.
Employer cost decomposition
This chart decomposes employer cost at a selected wage point. Contribution reliefs are shown as a reduction in theoretical employer contributions.
Key indicators
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Comparisons
Comparative charts will be added here to compare AT/MP scenarios, employee status and territorial regimes.
Employer cost by AT/MP scenario
For the selected employee status and territorial regime, this chart compares total employer cost across AT/MP risk scenarios.
Employer cost gap relative to standard AT/MP
This chart shows the monthly employer-cost difference relative to the standard AT/MP scenario.
Employer cost by employee status
For the selected territorial regime and AT/MP scenario, this chart compares total employer cost between non-executive and executive employees.
Employer cost gap: executive minus non-executive
This chart shows the monthly employer-cost difference between executive and non-executive employees.
Data
The full simulation dataset can be downloaded as a CSV file. It contains all wage points and all combinations of employee status, territorial regime and AT/MP scenarios.
Data for selected profile
Methodology
The dashboard is built from a reproducible wage grid evaluated through the Mon-entreprise / URSSAF API. The objective is not to reproduce a full payslip, but to isolate economically meaningful indicators of labour cost formation.
- Source. Calculations are obtained from the public Mon-entreprise / URSSAF API.
- Wage grid. Gross monthly wages are expressed as multiples of the gross monthly SMIC, from 0.8 to 3.5 SMIC, with a 0.01 SMIC step.
- Combinatorial simulation. Users can combine three dimensions: employee status, territorial regime and AT/MP risk scenario.
- Employee status. The status dimension distinguishes non-executive and executive employees.
- Territorial regime. The territorial dimension distinguishes the general regime from the Alsace-Moselle regime.
- AT/MP scenarios. The AT/MP dimension should be interpreted as a risk-rate scenario, not as a precise occupation or sector. Explicit rates, such as 1% or 4%, are directly passed to the Mon-entreprise engine. The support-functions scenario relies on a rule flagged as experimental by the API.
- Indicators. Employer cost, net wage, employer contributions, employee contributions, RGDU 2026, social wedge and cost-to-net ratios are derived from API outputs.
- Effective employer contribution rate. The rate shown in the chart is not the gross statutory employer contribution schedule. It is an apparent rate after employer contribution reliefs, computed as net employer contributions divided by gross wage.
- Marginal indicators. The marginal employer-cost rate is computed as the finite difference between two adjacent points of the wage grid: Δ employer cost / Δ gross wage.
- Limitations. Results are reference simulations, not official payslip calculations. They may vary depending on firm size, collective agreements, precise AT/MP classification, exemptions and specific contribution regimes.
Regulatory parameter versioning
Version used : 2026-05
Effective date : 2026-05-01
Calculation source : Mon-entreprise / URSSAF API
Simulations currently rely on regulatory parameters and calculations provided by the Mon-entreprise / URSSAF API. The versioning system documents the regulatory assumptions associated with each dashboard version.
Working Paper
This working paper documents the French Labour Cost Lab, its methodology, indicators, internal consistency checks and limitations.
Contact
For any comment, correction, methodological suggestion, data-source proposal or request for discussion about the French Labour Cost Lab, you can use the form below.