Possible increase in the minimum wage: what is the profile of employees who are paid the minimum wage?

How much will the minimum wage increase? The Minister of Labor Jean-Pierre Farandou considered it "important" on Friday November 6 to try to "cross the bar" of 1,500 euros net, against 1,477 euros in November 2026. The discussion around the increase in the minimum wage is underway, while a social conference called by the Prime Minister in Matignon will take place on Monday.

The revaluation at the start of 2026 changed the pay slips of just over two million people. One in ten employees in France is therefore paid 9.74 euros net per hour. In recent years, the proportion of employees paid the minimum wage has tended to decline.

But we are only talking about people who are on minimum wage. There is also a significant proportion of employees who are just above, and who do not benefit from the automatic increase in the minimum wage. Nearly 60% are women. Most of the time, employees paid the minimum wage work for very small companies, made up of fewer than ten employees.

Unsurprisingly, these are also often low-skilled jobs. Catering, supermarkets and even home help are among the sectors where there are the most people earning minimum wage. Employees on minimum wage are also more often forced to work less.

One in four minimum wage workers are part-time. This is significantly more than for other employees. Among people paid the minimum wage, women are over-represented.

Nearly 60% of people who receive the minimum wage are women. It is even more marked in certain sectors of activity. For example, in the chemicals sector, where there are almost as many women as men, eight out of ten employees paid the minimum wage are women.

Women are more often forced than men to have a part-time contract and this affects their salary level.

Machine-translated from French