Good news for employment in France: the EDF group announces that it will recruit nearly 20,000 people this year, including 10,000 new employees on permanent contracts. The balance concerns approximately equal parts, work-study students and interns. 40% of this involves an increase in staff and 60% a renewal of positions.
The stakes are high, for the company which has 179,000 employees, but also for the entire industrial sector and training. Anxious to attract candidates with very varied profiles, the energy company emphasizes its actions in terms of energy transition and low-carbon energies.
The group announces that it is recruiting around 4,500 people on permanent contracts for the nuclear sector, this scope also concerns Framatome. Since the announcement of the relaunch of the nuclear program by Emmanuel Macron two years ago, companies in the sector, led by EDF, have been on deck. The French Nuclear Energy Industrialists Group (Gifen) estimated that 100,000 new jobs would be created in this field between 2022 and 2030. The extension of the lifespan of existing power plants and the announced construction of at least six new reactors nuclear technologies offer career prospects in the (very) long term. And competition between companies to attract candidates could toughen up, after two lean decades. Even if for the moment, the sector “comes together to raise awareness of the nuclear professions”.
The needs are also considerable in energy services, with 3,000 positions open, the majority at Dalkia, one of the group’s subsidiaries specializing in heating networks. For its part, Enedis, which plans to invest 96 billion euros in its electricity networks by 2040, is recruiting 1,500 people this year. Finally, renewable energies, whether hydraulic, wind or solar, are looking for 1,000 people: several entities of the group are concerned, EDF, EDF Renewables and EDF ENR. Renewable energies could create between 200,000 and 300,000 jobs, according to estimates, in France, for the current decade.
“The energy transition presents a major industrial challenge: that of skills,” summarizes Caroline Chanavas, group executive director responsible for group human resources management. All profiles are affected. Nearly 15% of candidates recruited in 2024 for the EDF group in France will hold a professional baccalaureate, 45% a baccalaureate 2 or 3, and 40% from engineering schools or universities. Aware of the importance of training, the group also plans to integrate 10,000 work-study students and interns. EDF specifies that the latter “will be considered at the end of their training as priority candidates for permanent recruitment in technical fields”.
To meet its enormous needs which are also the consequence of an aging age pyramid, EDF is not only targeting young graduates. It opens its doors to “professionals who have acquired experience outside the group”. The group emphasizes the diversity of the profiles sought, salespeople, technicians, work supervisors, etc.
EDF faces another challenge, that of the feminization of technical professions. In two years, the proportion of women recruited by EDF SA increased from 25% to 30%. There is still a long way to go to achieve parity, but companies are not the only ones responsible for this state of affairs. EDF, like its peers, is faced with the under-representation of women in certain training courses. The next few years could allow us to move towards a rebalancing, while recruitment will still be around ten thousand per year.