Industry: how to remedy the shortage of skills and experts in the sector?

Automotive, agri-food, manufacturing, energy production and distribution, metallurgy…, the industrial branch in France is varied. However, it faces a shortage of labor and recruitment. Initiatives, such as those of this industry recruitment agency, make it possible to bring supply and demand into line. Their mission is, to sum up with only a handful of words, to search on French territory for candidates likely to meet the needs of an industrial society.

Difficulties in finding qualified and specialized candidates

Indeed, finding the right profile, recruiting a technician or an engineer in the industrial sector has rarely been as complex as it is today. But the cause of this shortage is not so obvious and several reasons can explain this trend which penalizes many companies:

• Is it a question of salaries that are too low and not attractive enough?
• Are there too many demands from recruiters?
• Is it the fault of a lack of love for this branch sometimes considered too manual with few prospects for evolution?

How to cure it ?

Updating knowledge, learning new techniques or innovative know-how, using ever more sophisticated machines… Over the course of your career, additional certifications may prove necessary. Because innovation (very often associated with technology) is essential to allow the sector to relaunch and to last over time. But this innovation precisely requires specific skills!

Internal training has a major role to play in offering staff the opportunity to develop their skills. Some manufacturers also encourage collaboration between learners and seasoned professionals to facilitate knowledge sharing.

Another line of work: adapting professional training so that it better meets today’s and tomorrow’s industry objectives. Train technicians, manage machines and robots, carry out predictive analyses… So many specialties that must be included in training programs to meet the challenges of companies looking for labour.

Reindustrialization objective

The Covid-19 crisis, the conflict between Ukraine and Russia as well as internal upheavals such as the movement of yellow vests are all disruptions that create an uncertain context. Our dependence on foreign industries has been highlighted very recently with the freezing of deliveries and production networks suffered by the country. This industrial renaissance therefore aims to restore the sector in France and reposition itself as a successful player.

In order to remedy this, the government is relying on two complementary plans: France Relance and France 2030. The second, initiated in 2020, aims to revive the economy over the next five years and in particular the industrial sector.

By developing industrial sectors, decision-makers wish to gradually erase the contrast between start-ups and industries and create a valuable ecosystem on French soil. To achieve this, beyond financial support, it is also a question of strengthening competitiveness thanks to decarbonization objectives.

On the one hand, this makes it possible to respond to environmental issues. But at the same time, this decarbonization aims to drastically reduce CO emissions₂ : which are a decision-making criterion for customers, which impact the selling price of a product as well as production costs, which allow better management of energy and financial resources at the same time…

According to this investment plan France 2030, the goal to be achieved would be the symbolic number of 100 new industrial sites per year. But for these large-scale companies to see the light of day, it is still necessary that the workforce and the engineers are there…