Can we speak of a great civil servant blues? According to the latest figures provided by the Ministry of Public Service and that the Express was able to consult, the public service is no longer a dream. In a quarter of a century, the number of candidates for competitions has almost been divided by four. Only 177,000 candidates applied in 2021 for 41,000 positions offered, compared to 642,000 (for 38,804 positions offered) in 1997. At the same time, the selectivity of positions (the total number of candidates divided by the number of places) has decreased significantly in 25 years: from 14.1 in 1997, we drop to only 4.3 in 2021. such as care auxiliaries or caregivers (241,699 applicants in 1997 compared to 28,874 in 2019). Certain professions hitherto popular, such as firefighters, are also less coveted.
A shame, while the State needs to recruit “every year 100,000 people” according to the Minister of Public Service, Amélie de Montchalin. How to explain this crisis of vocations? To shed light on this, the Express spoke with Luc Rouban, research director at the CNRS and Cevipof, author in particular of What future for the public service? (Ed. La documentation française, 2017).
L’Express: Do these figures put forward by the Ministry of Public Service surprise you?
Luc Rouban: It is a complex subject. When we talk about loss of attractiveness, there is the question of the selectivity of competitions, namely the meeting between present and positions. This data varies according to the time and the categories of civil servants (A, B and C). It should not be excluded either that half of the candidates do not present themselves. Then, the movements vary according to the years. Between 2008 and 2013, for example, you had an increase in the selectivity rate for levels B and C due to higher unemployment and the economic crisis. The civil service was perceived as an opportunity for the most modest. Recruitment of category A civil servants (accessible from the licence, editor’s note) has remained stable.
Since 2013, the trend has been downward. This concerns a certain number of professions, for example in particular school teachers who recently had fewer people registered for their competition. There is a problem of attractiveness for a certain number of professions, which has already affected the hospital function for a long time, with an 18% deficit of positions at the APHP. There are also still 5 to 6% of unfilled positions within the State civil service. This phenomenon is beginning to affect the territorial public service, for example for the positions of town hall secretary.
How do you interpret this drop in the number of candidates for civil service competitions?
There are a number of relatively simple reasons. First, a deterioration in working conditions in several sectors, such as firefighters, police officers, hospitals. A report by Dares, the direction of the animation of research, studies and statistics, for example showed an increase in the number of sick leaves among civil servants. There has also been an increase in the number of police suicides.
Then there is also a difficult problem to control, which is the evolution of the world of work. In all technical circles, you have competition from the private sector, which must be associated with changes in recruitment levels. For school teachers, the fall in the number of candidates is also to be compared with their master’s degree. People ask themselves: at this level of education, won’t I find better than National Education and its 1800 euros net per month?
Similarly, we must not neglect the evolution of very largely feminized professions, such as teachers or even school teachers. At the same time, you have an increased feminization of other technical, management and supervisory professions. Women, who until now were often conditioned by a kind of culture and social assignment to certain professions, see other horizons opening up. Mechanically, there are fewer candidates for positions that have hitherto been very feminized.
Finally, there is also a horizon that is not very clear. The civil service reform law, dated August 6, 2019, opens it up to contract workers, but strengthens the power of the hierarchy. It is a form of liberalization of the public service, a transformation which means that we do not really know where we are going. Civil servants wonder about the future of their careers, without having too many answers. There is a problem of lack of visibility of the future of public service in France.
Is “civil servant bashing”, as mentioned by the office of the Minister of Public Service, another valid explanation for this disenchantment?
It is certain that the current political debate on civil servants does not resolve these uncertainties. We have on the one hand Valérie Pécresse, who wants to reduce the number of civil servants when we know, especially since the yellow vests, that the French are asking for more public service. On the other side, on the left, we assert that we will recruit more. But that does not sum up the problem: we must not only recruit, we must also keep.
Senior civil servants, however, can leave for more pay in the private sector, but also more freedom and recognition. There may be a desire to go into the private sector, imagining that there will be less bureaucracy, less of the human resources problems that we know in the public service. The civil servants in question are all the more difficult to retain as, having reached a certain level of competence, they can look elsewhere, such as teachers who have the possibility of leaving for more or less related sectors, in the private sector or the association.
Does it concern all strata of the public service, or does it spare the most attractive positions and competitions, namely those of the public service?
I would say that it concerns more the senior civil service. At the limit, the fear of unemployment, the fear of not finding a job, can push modest people to try competitions B and C, and to stay there. But the A categories, and more specifically the potential candidates who come out of the big schools, have a choice. Just look at the profile of Sciences Po students: two-thirds go private. Job satisfaction is often linked to autonomy. However, at the senior management level, the private sector is often considered to be a little more autonomous. And the problem is there: we will always have competitions for the public service, but what are we going to do with them? This is also the great challenge of the national institute of public service, the replacement of the ENA. Will they build a public service with people devoted to the general good, or will they fall back into the rut of the ENA, an elite school where the public serves as a gateway to the private?
Are we not heading for a major problem, when we are going to experience a significant flow of retirements by 2030? How many civil servants should we recruit in the next ten years to replace them?
Hard to say, because everything will depend on the retirement age! But just as much as departures, we must also look at disinvestment in work: people who are present, but who, in the last 10 or 5 years before their retirement, only do the minimum. There may be a form of internal disengagement. We see that a form of discouragement can set in in certain professions, such as judges in particular. Very good civil servants can end up feeling disinvested in their mission in the face of their working conditions.
The tracks imagined by the report on the attractiveness of the territorial public service, submitted to the Minister at the beginning of the month, would they be enough to relaunch the attractiveness of the public service? The latter notably proposes a more incentive compensation policy…
A real salary problem arises today in the public service, if only because we have increased the requirements at the level of the diploma. Competitions are not necessarily very attractive or very competitive. This is problematic: of course, we insist on the fact that the public service is full of “passionate professions”, but this must not be used as an alibi to offer truncated careers and unattractive salaries. And once again, there are always ambiguities to be resolved on the future of the State, of the public service.
It can however be noted that there is nevertheless an internal career management work on the part of the Ministry of the Civil Service. This management was until now very compartmentalized, it was very difficult to catch up with things. But we are gradually getting out of this uncooperative reflex. It can also make human resources barriers more fluid. But it is a task that will take years.