The relaunch after the plunge: Airbus will hire at least 6,000 people worldwide in 2022 to meet the significant need for new aircraft after the Covid-19 pandemic and to prepare green aircraft technologies.
Although global air traffic will take many more months to return to its 2019 level, Airbus has not waited to start a sharp increase in the rate of its production: airlines will have to renew their fleets with planes that consume less fuel. , therefore emitting less CO2, and increase them to cope with the strong growth expected in air traffic over time.
To support this ramp-up, but also to meet the needs for military aircraft, helicopters and satellites, “the company announces its intention to start the year 2022 with a recruitment plan for around 6,000 people worldwide, in the entire group,” said Airbus in a press release, without specifying at this stage the number of recruitments by country.
These hirings take into account the replacement of the natural departures planned but these are limited because there have “already been a lot of departures as part of our adaptation plans over the last 18 months”, explained the director of human resources. of the group, Thierry Baril, to journalists.
The first Airbus A220 from Air France, presented on September 29 in the industrial zone of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport
© AFP – Eric PIERMONT
By summer, “we will see if this plan is sufficient for the year 2022 or if we have to go further” and hire more, “we are going step by step”, he added.
In France, the unions welcomed this announcement, “very good news”, according to Françoise Vallin, coordinator of the CFE-CGC union.
“We managed this health crisis very well, we were in a situation where Airbus could die, we saved the store and we emerged stronger from the crisis”, welcomed Dominique Delbouis, Force Ouvrière coordinator, first group union.
From the start of the pandemic, the aircraft manufacturer had reduced its production rates and announced 15,000 job cuts, including 5,000 in France and 5,100 in Germany, the main countries in which the aircraft manufacturer operates.
The figure had finally been revised downwards in favor of public aid such as the partial unemployment schemes put in place by the States. In the end, the number of group employees fell from 135,000 at the end of 2019 to 126,000 on September 30, 2021, the last figure available.
– Decarbonization and cyber –
But we must respond to “strong signs of recovery in the aerospace industry” and “put in place the roadmap for the decarbonization” of air transport, according to Thierry Baril.
Airbus human resources director Thierry Baril at the inauguration of the group’s management university in Blagnac, near Toulouse, September 19, 2016
© AFP – PASCAL PAVANI
A quarter of the planned recruitments will concern “new skills” linked to decarbonisation, digital transformation and cybertechnology.
Airbus is studying the development of a hydrogen-powered aircraft by 2035, a concept that involves a thorough review of the entire architecture of the aircraft. In the field of defence, it is one of the main manufacturers responsible for developing the future air combat system (Scaf), desired by Paris, Berlin and Madrid and which will make extensive use of digital technologies that have yet to be created. .
In the shorter term, to respond to the success of its A320 and A321 single-aisle aircraft, Airbus must significantly increase its production rates.
It plans to produce 65 A320 family aircraft each month from the summer of 2023, more than it has ever built, while their production had dropped to 40 monthly aircraft from the start of the pandemic. He even plans to mount up to 75 devices per month in 2025.
A juggernaut in the global aeronautical industry, it has hundreds of subcontractors in its wake. Its new subsidiary Airbus Atlantic (13,000 employees), which brings together aircraft structure assembly activities, plans to hire 700 people this year.
The engine manufacturer and aeronautical equipment manufacturer Safran, which is also benefiting from the ramp-ups planned at the American Boeing, provides for 12,000 hires, including 3,000 in France. The health crisis had led him to cut 20,000 jobs worldwide.
For France, the Grouping of French Aeronautical and Space Industries (Gifas), the professional organization of the sector which had 194,000 employees at the end of 2020, estimates the needs for 2022 at “about fifteen thousand hires”.
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