Youth of France look to Republic for work

Young workers most affected by the high unemployment rates in France are increasingly taking their skills abroad, writes Gabrielle Monaghan

Twenty-three year old Clement Vignault found his job at a toll station in France very dull, so he sent his CV to a French recruitment company in Dublin in the hope of finding better work. Two months ago, Clement joined the ranks of young French workers leaving high unemployment rates behind to meet surging demand for labour in the Republic.

"I now work in the customer service department at Maxtor in Bray and I'm very satisfied," Clement says. "I have a good job now, and many French colleagues and friends in Dublin."

Approach People Recruitment, the Republic's only specialised French recruitment agency, receives more than 200 CVs a week from educated or highly-skilled French people. Approach has placed more than 800 French people, including Clement, in multinational companies such as Apple, Dell, Accenture and Oracle since its creation in 2000.

The Blackrock-based agency found jobs for 400 French speakers last year, and has 20,000 more on its database. Approach expects its revenue to grow 20 per cent in 2006, as France's brightest and best increasingly leave their homes in favour of greater employment opportunities in the Republic, Europe's fastest-growing economy.

Most French jobseekers are aged 28-35 and typically stay in the Republic temporarily, according to John Murat, director of Approach.

"France has big problems finding work for young people," he says. "The French media is covering the issue a lot, which is pushing up the numbers of those who are considering working abroad, and they realise how dynamic Ireland is. I have had film crews from three different national TV stations in France come into our office to cover the topic."

Unemployment in France came under the global spotlight earlier last month when hundreds of thousands of French students took to the streets to protest against the introduction of a law that would permit first-time job holders, up to the age of 26, to be let go without reason or severance during their first two years of employment, thereby lessening risks for employers and increasing incentives to expand hiring. The protest situation cooled only after the government abandoned its plans.

But the problem still remains. The French economy grew 2.1 per cent in 2004 before slowing to a paltry 1.5 per cent in 2005. Unemployment, now near 9.6 per cent, has hovered at a disastrously high 10 per cent for two decades, and almost 23 per cent of those under 25 don't have a job. Indeed, its youth unemployment rate is six times higher than the Republic.

Workers who land a coveted permanent contract can plan on staying until retirement. Companies that need to fire staff not only have to give at least three months' notice, pay fines to the state and up to three years of severance pay, but also have to convince a judge that the firing is justified. The government blames such rules for persistent unemployment, and had devised the now defunct first job contract (CPE) law to ease them.

The government faces a tough challenge: the French are now the most anti-capitalist nation on earth, according to a new Globescan poll. Only 36 per cent agree that a free-market economy is the best system on which to base the future - by far the lowest of any country. Even Chirac has warned of the dangers of "Anglo-Saxon capitalism".

While the debate in France rages on, many of its educated youths have decided there is only one viable solution - to leave. Between 1991 to 2002, the number of French workers living in other parts of western Europe rose 47 per cent, to 563,977 from 382,708, according to Insée, France's national statistics agency. About 20,000 came to the Republic. Some are moving here with very little English but many of the positions available don't require fluency, such as working in the multilingual department of a software firm, according to Murat. Most of the jobseekers Approach places go to the IT sector, followed by accounting, customer services and sales.

However, most French people working here don't plan to stay for good, Murat says. "They go away to Ireland for two to three years. Most good candidates even manage to get transferred back to France."