While traveling in Marseille, did Emmanuel Macron speak too quickly in responding to the concerns of a mother who questioned him about his son’s difficulties in finding a job? Questioned in the morning of BFMTV this Tuesday, the secretary general of the CFDT Marylise Léon was not kind to the last outing of the head of state. “It’s the easy little phrase of a President who ignores the reality of the trades, the difficulty of finding a job”, annoyed Marylise Léon.
The day before, the President of the Republic had reacted to the concerns of a resident, mother of a 33-year-old job seeker: “What does your son want to work in? He wants to be a waiter? When I was younger I said “you have to cross the street”, it’s even more true today than yesterday. We go around the port, I would be surprised if there is not a restaurant or cafe that does not seek, ”he said. A Marseille variant of the response he made to a young horticulturist in 2018: “I cross the street and I find you a job,” Emmanuel Macron then proclaimed, a statement that made history.
But, for the one who has just replaced Laurent Berger at the head of the first trade union organization in France, finding a job, “it’s not that simple”. “When you’re looking for a job, it’s a constant questioning,” argued Marylise Léon. “The President ignores the reality of people looking for a job”, further castigated the trade unionist, believing that “it is not the role of the Elysée to find work for everyone”.
Still, Emmanuel Macron’s allegation stands up to the test of facts: on condition of anonymity, a journalist from La Provence went to the Old Port of Marseille on Monday evening, and was offered, in just one hour, no less than 13 job offers. A balance sheet even higher than the figure brandished by the Head of State. And a revealing observation of the persistent difficulties of the sector since the pandemic.
The hotel and catering industry is indeed facing an unprecedented shortage of labour: 250,000 jobs remain to be filled in the sector, a number which could rise to 300,000 positions during the summer season, according to representatives of the sector. The Minister Delegate in charge of Trade, Olivia Grégoire, for her part estimated that “200,000 people were missing in the hotel and catering industry”. The haemorrhage of talent linked to Covid – 450,000 people left the world of hotels and restaurants between February 2020 and February 2021, according to the Ministry of Labor – has not subsided. The sector may well have reviewed its minimum salary grid in December, but it still suffers from a lack of attractiveness in the eyes of candidates, especially the youngest.
Does this mean that they are reluctant to accept a job offer from a recruiting establishment? “I don’t think there is a choice for some young people to stay at home, to benefit from the RSA, rather than going to work,” defended Marylise Léon. Far from welcoming, like Emmanuel Macron, a particularly low unemployment rate – 7.1% in the first quarter of 2023 – the trade unionist pleads for the improvement of working conditions in sectors in tension such as catering. “The question is what are the working conditions that we offer, the housing problems …”, she shelled.
Working conditions (revaluation of overtime, increase in rest days, reduction of cuts, etc.) will indeed be at the heart of the next branch negotiations in the hotel and catering industry. As for the access of employees to housing, the president of Umih Thierry Marx has made it his hobbyhorse. The starred chef went so far as to rant against the Airbnb rental platform, which he considers responsible for the housing shortage. “There is no more rental to house seasonal workers,” he lamented at the microphone of France Info last February. So many obstacles that constitute a real obstacle to hiring, despite flourishing job offers.
