Letter from the table: A first hire is also a cashflow decision

RC/TM/2026/T.12 · 4 April 2026

To the Team Council,

I support the First Ten Hires proposal. I am writing because the cost of employing someone does not arrive in my accounts as an abstract percentage. It arrives beside the rent, the supplier invoice and the customer payment that has not yet come in. For me, the question of whether I can hire is also a question of whether I can plan my cashflow.

In January, I started preparing to hire my first employee. I had work that I could no longer comfortably cover alone, and I wanted to make the position formal from the beginning. I asked my accountant to estimate the monthly cost for a full-time hire. We used a gross salary of €2,100 a month as a working case. The estimate was not a universal rate: the employer cost depends on the situation and on which reductions or other rules apply. But the estimate gave me a number to plan around, and a list of things I would have to do.

In France, an employer has to make a déclaration préalable à l’embauche (DPAE) to Urssaf before the employee starts work. The employer also has recurring payroll and social-declaration obligations, including the monthly déclaration sociale nominative (DSN). I understand why those obligations exist. They protect employees and make work visible. But when you have never employed anyone, each step feels like another place where a small misunderstanding can become an expensive one.

I looked at the TESE service offered through Urssaf, which can simplify some employment and payroll formalities for eligible employers. I also asked my accountant what it would and would not take off my plate. That helped with the process. It did not make the monthly employment cost

easier to carry, or make the timing of that cost less important. A simpler form is useful; it is not the same thing as a predictable bill.

The cashflow side of the decision

Then a payment I had expected in February did not arrive on the agreed date. The invoice was for €3,600. It was due on 10 February; it was paid on 8 March. I will not name the customer. I had already done the work, but for nearly four weeks the money was not available to pay my own bills.

I had set aside money for the proposed hire. When the payment was late, I went back through my forecast and moved the start date I had been considering. I could not responsibly make a recurring commitment while I was unsure whether a large incoming payment would land on time. I did not want to offer a job and then discover that one delayed invoice had left me short for payroll. The person I hoped to hire did nothing wrong. The problem was that the risk of timing sat with me.

This is where I see a direct connection between the Team Council and the Cashflow Council. Late payment can turn an otherwise affordable hire into a risk. At the same time, unclear or difficult-to-forecast employment costs make a late payment harder to absorb. A small employer does not experience these as two separate policy files. They meet in the same bank account, in the same week.

“A simpler form is useful; it is not the same thing as a predictable bill.”

I am not asking for employment protections to be weakened, or for wages to be made less secure. Nor do I think a small employer should be excused from registering a worker properly. I want the first step into formal employment to be possible without asking a person who has never run payroll to guess how much cash to reserve, which office to contact, and whether the answer will change next month.

What I would want the standard to change

The proposal’s three parts make sense to me. First, phased social contributions for a business’s first ten hires would reduce the jump in cost when a business begins employing people. It should be designed so the worker’s protections and take-home pay are not the thing being phased down. Second, one-stop payroll registration would let an employer provide the necessary information once and understand clearly what has been completed and what remains. Third, predictable rules would let a business forecast its actual employer cost in advance, including how any applicable reductions affect that cost.

“First ten” matters. It makes the measure a bridge into employment, not a permanent discount for a company that is already large. I would also want the rules to be clear enough that a small employer can tell whether they apply without commissioning a separate interpretation. If the relief is temporary, its timetable should be stated plainly. If a calculation changes, the employer should have notice and a simple explanation.

The First Ten Hires cost diary is a practical way to gather evidence. I hope it records not only the headline estimate, but also the time spent finding the right process, the point at which the amount became clear, and what happened when expected income arrived late. Those details show whether a proposed fix reduces uncertainty in real life, rather than merely moving it from one form to another.