France lacks manpower, especially that of seasonal workers in the field of tourism and particularly that of hotels and restaurants. Also, it plans to recruit some 10,000 workers in Morocco and Tunisia, in a not quite desperate attempt to fill a void (300,000 seasonal workers) that it needs in this battered sector, which has increase with the lifting of health restrictions.
It’s because expectations are high in France for the current summer season, after two long years of scarcity. Indeed, in this period of crisis that some hope behind us, the hotel and catering industry has lost a large number of staff who have left for other horizons to try an El Dorado. This situation, combined with a stock of very low job seekers focused on this activity, France found itself lacking valuable labour, at least in this sector.
The Union des Métiers et des Industries de l’Hôtellerie (Umih), the main employers’ union in the hotel and catering industry, is already preparing to sign an agreement with the Tunisian government to facilitate the arrival of young people wishing to work as seasonal workers in the area. A similar initiative with Morocco should follow very soon.
” In catering, seasonal workers are sorely lacking declared Thierry Grégoire, president of the seasonal Umih. This is why the employers’ does not refrain from looking at good practices in other sectors, such as agriculture ” he added. And in this regard, in 2021 there were more than 23,000 Moroccan agricultural workers who moved to Spain and France to work in the fields.
It is also on this model of agricultural workers that France is preparing to recruit seasonal hotel and restaurant workers in Morocco. The contract of a maximum duration of six months, after the approval of the OFII France, is taken care of by the OFII Morocco which intervenes in the procedure of introduction of the worker in France (administrative and consular procedures…) for be recruited for a given period. The positions requested range from the head of the room, waiter, kitchen clerk, receptionist, cleaning lady… in short, small jobs in the café-hotel and restaurant sectors.
There are 750,000 employees in France working in this sector in France, of which 300,000 are seasonal workers. Also, we are preparing to recruit all over the place, including 10,000 Moroccans and Tunisians. To do this, France relies on bilateral agreements with a dozen countries (Morocco, Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Tunisia, Estonia, United States, Hungary, Poland, etc.).
Many economies in Europe since the recovery have suffered from a shortage of labor in certain areas, particularly those discussed here, and we are therefore witnessing a merciless struggle to attract labor work necessary for economic recovery. It must be said that the unemployment rate in the euro zone (6.8%) of the active population is at its lowest level in history. Spain (13.3%), Greece (12.7%) and Italy (8.4%) are the dunces. The Netherlands has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe (3.2%), along with the Czech Republic (2.4%), Germany (3%) and Poland (3%).
Paradoxically, while France is seeking to recruit in the Maghreb, the Netherlands are planning to seek this precious workforce in France. In a statement, the Dutch Minister for Social Affairs and Employment, Karien Van Gennip, explained that ” there was a really high youth unemployment rate in France, especially in the suburbs. I could imagine that we invest in these young French or Spanish people who come out of school to have them work here in the hospitality or horticulture sector “.
“I can’t imagine that we can run our economy without migrants,” did she concede.
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