France,
troubled for years by high unemployment, is now grappling with a lack of qualified
workers. While it still has 3.5 million registered jobseekers, a growing
number
of positions lie unfilled because companies can't find the right people.
Many company
bosses are pinning their hopes on newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron, and
specifically his labor reform plans, to help find willing and able workers.
One such
employer is Philippe Girard, who heads the French subsidiary of British
construction equipment maker JCB. Despite offering above market pay rates for
entry level jobs, his firm has been unable to fill 50 posts for maintenance
technicians in its dealership network for more than a year.
"It's
becoming a brake on our development because clients increasingly want
maintenance service on construction sites and without technicians we can't meet
their needs," he told Reuters.
Girard has
also been looking in vain for six months for three sales executives at the JCB
France headquarters in Sarcelles, a satellite town of Paris where unemployment
is in double digits.
Critics of
the current regulatory regime say rigid labor rules and poorly adapted training
unnecessarily keep the unemployment rate close to 10 percent.
Macron hopes
to fix the mismatch of supply and demand for workers by pouring billions of
euros into training while simplifying the labor code.
The object
is to make it easier for employers to hire but also to shed staff, should their
business turn down in the future. To sweeten the pill, he also wants to expand
unemployment benefits for people seeking a career change.
Similar but
less ambitious measures to free up the labor market have in the past run into
resistance in parliament, and provoked sometimes violent protests on the
streets.
Undaunted,
Macron has made the reforms his top priority, starting talks with trade unions
last week. He is also seeking a majority for his party in legislative elections
next month to strengthen his hand in pushing them through parliament.
SKILLS GAP
Companies'
demand for workers is surging as the economy slowly picks up. Government
employment agencies had received 274,000 unfilled job offers as of April, up 14
percent in a year and close to levels not seen since November 2011.
Demand for
workers on longer-term contracts - which French firms often avoid, fearing they
will be unable to get rid of staff in the future - is growing faster than for
short-term hires. More than half of the offers received were for contracts of
over six months.
GRAPHIC -
French job vacancies: tmsnrt.rs/2pcQP4Z
Recruitment
group Manpower found in a recent survey that nearly one in four French
employers was struggling to find workers.
"We
clearly have a skills gap between what our customers are looking for and
people's real skills," Manpower France head Alain Roumilhac told Reuters.
With even
relatively lowly-paid industrial workers usually needing to use digital
technology, Manpower is investing millions and receives public subsidies to train
workers up to meet employers' expectations.
Eric Labaye,
a senior partner at the McKinsey consultancy, said that while 90 percent of
jobs require at least basic proficiency with digital technologies, 40 percent
of the workforce did not have such elementary skills.
"Adapting
the labor market and skills is clearly a priority. The primary focus should be
on getting more people with the right skillset into growing sectors. Second is
the development of these growing sectors themselves," Labaye told Reuters.
One example
is booming demand for data specialists. France employs fewer of them as a
proportion of its workforce than any other OECD country except Turkey, despite
a world-class reputation for higher mathematics, according to figures from the
35-nation organization.
BIG MONEY
Macron has
said he wants to invest 15 billion euros ($16.8 billion) in building up skills
for a million youths and another million low-qualified, long-term unemployed
people.
France
already spends nearly 32 billion euros a year on professional training,
equivalent to 1.5 percent of economic output, but only 15 percent goes to
training job seekers, according to data from the Labour Ministry.
"France
puts a lot of money into the training system but it is very, very
complex," said OECD economist Nicola Brandt, who is preparing a report on
France for the organization.
"More
money is always better, but we have an issue of money not being used in the
right way, basically not going to the people who need it most," she said.
Extra money
for training, as well as extending unemployment benefits to cover people who
want to leave jobs for a new profession, could help make Macron's reforms more
palatable to critics.
Eager to
push ahead on labor reform quickly, Macron launched talks with unions last week
knowing he will have to overcome resistance to his plans to ease regulation.
Though it
would help if he wins a parliamentary majority, labor reform is always a deeply
sensitive issue in France, where high job security is cherished.
His
Socialist predecessor, Francois Hollande, tried to introduce more working time
flexibility and rein in labor tribunal challenges and payouts last year,
leading to violent student protests in French cities.
Eventually
Hollande's government - in which Macron served as economy minister - invoked
special powers to impose the reforms by decree due to a lack of support in
parliament.
"Only
one mistake could break everything. Macron is trying to be as clever as
possible, especially with the unions because even if he has a majority in
parliament he has a very narrow path to deploy the program," Manpower's
Roumilhac.
0 Comments