No pun intended, all the lights were green for Biotope. Since 1993, this French company has been supporting companies, government services and NGOs on the actions to be implemented with regard to the preservation of the environment and biodiversity. A hot topic that mobilizes its 800 employees more than ever. And as demand increases, so do human needs. But for a year, the thirty-year-old group has been struggling to recruit more than a hundred additional employees, all or almost all on permanent contracts, despite attractive offers on a theme increasingly favored by neo-actives. “The relationship has been reversed: it is now the young people who make the choices. I had employees who left for fixed-term contracts, while they were on permanent contracts. The question is: how long will it last?” asks Anne-Lise Melki, the general manager.
Biotope’s difficulties alone illustrate the current tensions on the job market, which are no longer the prerogative of the hotel and catering industry and industry. Almost all areas are affected. “There is not a sector with which we work where the leaders do not tell us that they have difficulty recruiting”, testifies Arnaud Naudan, president of the management board of BDO France, the fifth global audit and consulting network, which supports more than 30,000 companies in France. Starting with tech. “Everyone is looking for the same people. There are not enough engineers trained in France,” laments Benoît Serre, vice-president of the National Association of Human Resources Directors (ANDRH).
“A wall of scarcity awaits us. We are at the beginning of the first wave”
Above all structural difficulties
A situation that many experts and professionals link to the Covid-19 pandemic. The relationship to work has since changed. The difficulties are above all structural. In the 1st quarter of 2023, the unemployment rate was 7.1%. With the France Travail bill, the government hopes to achieve full employment – i.e. an unemployment rate of around 5% – in 2027. “It is not abnormal that there is tension on the labor market when we get closer to it”, estimates Olivia Grégoire. According to the Minister Delegate in charge of SMEs, Trade, Crafts and Tourism, this is only the beginning. “A wall of scarcity awaits us. We are at the beginning of the first wave, which means that we will not find women and men to fill these jobs in the space of eight months. We can build factories in this time frame, but we cannot create qualified people”.
In the hotel and catering industry, the problem seems deeper. Just before the start of the summer season, the sector was still looking for 70,000 seasonal workers. “We have been dragging out this problem for a while, knowing that there are fewer and fewer people coming out of vocational high schools. There must be a real match between the needs and the training offer”, calls for Laurent Barthélémy, president of the seasonal workers branch, at the Union des Métiers et des Industries de l’Hôtellerie (UMIH).
Working conditions also weigh in the balance. In April 2022, an agreement providing for an average increase of 16.33% of the entire current salary grid came into force. “There was a huge step forward. Given its size, this also means that the sector was a little behind and that they were still a little paid at the slingshot”, judge Olivia Grégoire. “This problem did not happen overnight. It is not humanly possible to arrive at such a violent shortage like this overnight. There were signals.” These signals are in particular the debates around the cut, this period of latency between the midday and evening service in restaurants. The majority of workers, for example, do not have a rest room and must fend for themselves. The UMIH ensures that the problem is taken into account.
Industry not spared
In industry, the shortage does not spare anyone. “It’s fairly unanimous. From metallurgy to branches with smaller workforces, such as leather goods or glass, there have been needs everywhere, for a few months”, points out Stéphanie Lagalle-Baranes, general manager of Opco 2i, which brings together the 32 branches of the sector. This federation estimates the recruitment needs at 280,000. A lack of labor that is all the more penalizing as the government is betting on reindustrialization.
In Drôme, the Courbis group, which specializes in the manufacture of plastic parts for industrial vehicles, relocated part of its production from China in 2021. Like others, he encounters major difficulties in finding new talent, even if he relies more and more on mechanization. “Robots will not replace humans. We will always need people with skills to supervise. The problem is time.
One branch keeps a very close eye on the calendar: the nuclear branch. With the recovery promised by Emmanuel Macron and the start of construction of new reactors scheduled for 2027, labor needs are more necessary than ever. “We need the mobilization of resources and organizational productivity. In a world where employment is under pressure, there is a certain virtue in using resources efficiently”, wants to believe Olivier Bard, general delegate of the Group of French nuclear energy manufacturers (Gifen).
For its part, logistics – 10% of French GDP and 150,000 jobs – is no exception. “The shortages are in almost all categories: the operator in the warehouse, like the one who deals with information systems”, explains Adel Ouederni, partner of EY-Parthenon. A pitfall that reshuffles the cards as to the choices for future warehouse construction. “Until recently, logic dictated that the right location would be near the motorway or an airport. Today, customers say they will prefer a warehouse located in a place where they know they can find labor, even if it means traveling a few kilometers more”, assures Cécile Tricault, General Manager Southern Europe of Prologis, one of the largest operators and developers specializing in logistics real estate.
The location becomes a selection criterion
A choice that this sector is not the only one to make. “Companies, in their establishment criteria, now have the human resources component as their absolute priority. Historically, they first aimed at economic criteria: the cost of land, the level of aid, the local ecosystem”, underlines Jérémie Benmoussa, co-founder of the collective of entrepreneurs Axtom, who has just carried out a study on the subject. The subject of training also comes back on the table. “There is a mismatch between supply and demand. We must promote the return of young people to employment and strengthen their training. This requires a change in the French education system. We see all the difficulties encountered by the ministers of National Education. Finally, a happy minister is a minister who does nothing. France is fishing in this area, despite large sums, “pins the economist Philippe Crevel.
Another obstacle may complicate the situation: future retirements. “The French population is increasing little. Without external support, it is difficult to meet the needs of the economy. We have entered a period when labor is scarce: it is a structural phenomenon and linked to the development of the population”, analyzes Philippe Crevel. A sector of particular concern: metallurgy, which represents nearly half of French industrial employment. “This branch will experience significant retirements in the coming years,” warns Gilles Lafon, president of Prism’emploi, the employers’ organization for temporary work. For Philippe Crevel, France will sooner or later have to reopen the debate on immigration. The bill brought by the government, which provides in particular for the creation of a “job in tension” residence permit, has for the moment been postponed, for lack of a sufficient majority in Parliament. “Germany is solving this labor problem with recourse to immigration. The debate is extremely tense in France, will this be tenable in the long term?”, questions the economist. Response in the fall, when the executive plans to put the subject back on the table, without ruling out a further decline.