2023, “annus horribilis” for hairdressers? Between January 1 and June 30, procedures for the liquidation, receivership and safeguarding of hairdressing salons jumped 50% compared to the previous year, according to the research firm Altarès. With 600 failures recorded to date, 2023 could break the sad record of 2015, during which more than 1,000 salons were forced to shut down.
The reasons for this debacle? According to the professionals, they are multiple. With the return of social charges and the reimbursement of the loan guaranteed by the State, the most fragile salons are faced with the consequences of the infusion of public aid put in place during the confinements of 2020 and 2021. For Christophe Doré, president of the National Union of Hairdressing Companies (Unec), “the sector is regulating itself” after the exceptional years linked to Covid. And if this “regulation” may seem brutal, the representative considers it essential. “We must reach a number of professionals in line with the market, otherwise the profession will become impoverished,” he insists, before conceding that hairdressing establishments are “certainly too numerous in France.” Unec counted just over 100,000 in 2021, when the sector had “barely” 74,000 ten years earlier.
“There has been an exponential number of business creations in the wake of Covid. The French were attracted by independent work, especially in hairdressing”, deciphers Christophe Doré. Driven by this enthusiasm, the contingent of microentrepreneurs has soared: the scheme brings together nearly 30% of establishments in the sector. Too much competition for traditional salons? “What is certain is that we are watching this closely. Hairdressing is the sector with the highest proportion of microentrepreneurs. But these are establishments that do not train, while hairdressing is above all a profession of transmission, ”creases Christophe Doré. Competition is all the fiercer as newcomers are mainly concentrated in large centers and in medium-sized towns with more than 50,000 inhabitants, when rural fairs continue to become rare.
According to the president of Unec, hairdressers are therefore going through a bad patch, but which would only be “economic”. “There is nothing to worry too much about,” insists Christophe Doré, who refers, by way of illustration, to the great carnage of 2015, which was also temporary. His relative optimism is not, however, shared by the entire profession. “This is only the beginning,” warns Jacques*, manager of a Parisian hairdressing establishment. This professional hairdresser has settled in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, passage Jouffroy. “I opened just eight months ago and what strikes me above all are the changes in customer habits,” he notes, worried. Victim of a constrained purchasing power, the hairdresser no longer appears in the priority expenditure items. “Even my clients, who are mostly wealthy, space out their visits. Before, they came every month, now barely four times a year,” he laments.
If the customers are rarer, the charges, they fly away. The electricity bill in particular. When he can no longer benefit from the state tariff shield, Jacques will pay 600 euros for energy per month. “It’s untenable”, laments the one who has not managed to pay himself a salary for eight months. Like many of his colleagues, Jacques is a victim of the “scissor effect”: undermined by insufficient activity, margins and cash are crumbling, while expenses – energy, interest, suppliers – increase. “The turnover does not move so much because the hairdressers increase their prices, but the margins decrease”, recognizes for his part the boss of Unec.
Another problem, and not the least, the candidates do not jostle at the threshold of hairdressing salons. Like catering, the hairdressing sector is suffering from a talent shortage, aggravated by the health crisis. France had just over 87,320 active salaried hairdressers in 2020, a figure down 14% for ten years. “It was already hard to find ten years ago, but now it’s downright mission impossible,” sighs Jacques. Not to mention that the new generation of hairdressers is much more focused on hours and pay than its predecessors. “The candidates are asking for more and more money, it’s a disaster, says the official. Potential employers being numerically more numerous than applicants, they go to the highest bidder”.
Even the apprentices, who have always kept the profession alive, are lacking. On its website, Unec indicates that “hairdressing has lost more than 50% of its training staff since 2008”. The fault, perhaps, with minimums of branch remained relatively low, in spite of recent revalorizations negotiated by the trade unions. Or is it the hardship of the job, the workload of the schedules? “All of this is difficult, but there are solutions to make the profession more attractive: improve training, focusing on entrepreneurship, or offer international prospects, for example”, assures Henri Viot. , CEO of the Mod’s hair chain. For the time being, it is above all the generous bonuses paid by the State in favor of apprenticeships that seem to be bearing fruit. The number of apprentices in the hairdressing sectors is beginning to rise, which gives hope for a slight upturn in the years to come.
Because the hairdressing salon will remain an essential local business, inflation or not. To save the furniture, establishments will have no choice but to focus on excellence. “Customers come less often, but when they come, they want the total, that is to say quality attention and service,” explains the boss of Mod’s Hair. The profession is changing and tending towards more requirements. “Being the best hairdresser today is no longer enough,” confirms Pascal. You have to have real dynamism, a real work force, and know how to handle digital tools”. The 58-year-old hairdresser holds Google to be one of the main issues in the profession. “Without a good rating on Google, you’re finished.” “As always, you have to adapt to survive,” concludes Henri Viot.
*Name changed
