Is there a labour shortage in France?

[Rose]

I've been browsing the BBC site today and read the following with interest  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7351188.stm about unions and businesses backing French illegals.

I was under the impression that there is high unemployment and no work in France but this is suggesting that there is a shortage of labour, the guy in the article works in the roofing industry... I'm confused.  Anyone care to comment or expand... [8-)]

I'm just genuinely interested rather than trying to invoke a huge scrap... [:$] [:)]

[Val_2]

In today's Le Telegramme there is an article about the shortage of skilled workers in the building trades all over France and in other skilled areas. This is true but unfortunately the french employment system is such that small businesses just cannot afford to take people on when they really would love to because they are strangled by the charges and I know from personal experience of this how expensive it is to employ people especially with the 35hr rule or excess charges above normal for four hours or more over this for less than ten employees. Its time the system was changed so jobs could be offered without so much stress for the patrons.

[woolybananasbrother]

There is also a hell of a lot of people who find work uneconomical as the benefits they manage to acquire are worth more than a wage, and the have nice little earners on the side. But there is now some pressure to get them back to work.

[Logan]

This is an old story. The registered and legitimate builders and artisans have oodles of work. They stack it up and give you starting dates of months in advance rather than the alternative of taking on and training new staff and completing the work quicker. Val2 is quite right. The social charges and costs to business of  employing and training more staff are huge. The solution for them is simple, just to make the clients wait. Clients in any given area are all in the same boat so there is effectively no choice but to wait patiently. Meanwhile Bob the Builder uses your large deposit to finance other projects at no cost to himself.

The labour shortage is artificial and created by the system. This government has promised to change things. Well I am sure you all know what use a politician's promise is.

[NormanH]

I think some people are confusing the difficulty getting a skilled builder to renovate their house with the rather different problem here.

There are a lot of dirty dangerous jobs needing to be done (such as demolishing buildings with asbestos in, emptying dustbins, working very long hours). French people feel that they have been educated above this level, and expect, quite rightly in my opinion, proper Health and Safety conditions, and normal working hours, so they won't take these jobs.

Unscrupulous employers take on desparate illegal workers, because they don't ask the same rates or conditions, but of course after a while those people become quite skilled.

If they then want to move up the ladder they are threatened with expulsion.

These men were striking to show what an important contribution they make to tasks that nobody else will do.

Of course there is also a shortage of builders but it's not the same thing.  

[Will]

I tend to agree with NormanH. There are apparently unpleasant, boring or menial jobs available, paid (like much better jobs in France) at the minimum wage, and often with little regard for health and safety or employment law. But the French don't want them. A bit like the younger French people's tendency to be drifting away from the agricultural life of their parents, with its hard work, long hours, and poor (though less so perhaps than in some other countries) rewards, to find work more suited to their aspirations and qualifications in the cities, or overseas.

One reads a lot aout the black market for building work, and how the gendarmes, URSSAF etc are cracking down. But what they are cracking down upon is the large-scale employment of illegals on major building contracts rather than the one-off British odd job man. It's not only the illegally low pay and poor conditions that NormanH describes, it's the fact that the contractors who employ them are making a bomb because they, of course, are charging their clients full whack, based on use of properly registered labour rather than a bunch of North Africans.

As well as the bureaucracy and high charges for employers, there is also the fact that French culture is very firmly based on the fact that you train at school to do a certain job - be it a waitress, a hairdresser, a doctor or a farmer (though everybody wants to be a fonctionnaire) and that's the job you do for the rest of your working life. The idea of mobility between jobs, or re-training for a new career, however much Sarko et cie might want to encourage it to fill holes in the labour market, is alien to most people and few will even consider it. And why should they when they can get a good package of benefits, paid for by those who are in work?

 

 

[Logan]

[quote user="Will"]

 And why should they when they can get a good package of benefits, paid for by those who are in work?

[/quote]

Because Will the world constantly changes, except in France of course. That's the perception not the reality. Like most institutions who live beyond their means. France is like the boy with his finger in the dam.

[NormanH]

[quote user="Logan"][quote user="Will"]

 And why should they when they can get a good package of benefits, paid for by those who are in work?

[/quote]

Because Will the world constantly changes, except in France of course. That's the perception not the reality. Like most institutions who live beyond their means. France is like the boy with his finger in the dam.

[/quote]

And what comparison would you use for UK plc?

[Rose]

thanks for the replies ladies and gents... filled in a few gaps for me!  [:)]