European aerospace group Airbus, citing the worldwide slump in aircraft orders caused by the Covid-19 virus pandemic, announced on Tuesday it is to axe 15,000 jobs, representing 15% of its worforce, including 5,000 posts in France where its planes are assembled.
Of the 4,600 jobs to go in France, many would be through a voluntary departure plan and a retirement scheme, said Franck Daout of the CFDT trade union.
US corporation General Electric faces fines of 50,000 euros for every job it promised but has failed to create after its purchase in 2014 of the energy arm of French engineering company Alstom, labour minister Muriel Penicaud has said.
US computer systems giant IBM has is to hire 1,800 staff in France to work on projects in AI, blockchain, cloud computing and IoT said the company's CEO Ginni Rometty, speaking at a 'Tech for Good' summit in Paris hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
There were just more than 90,000 new jobs created in the French private sector during the second quarter of this year, a 0.5% rise on the first quarter and marking the 11th consecutive quarter in which private-sector jobs have grown, with most created in services and construction.
Union sources said they were informed by the company, taken over by Patrick Drahi in 2014, that a third of its workforce in France will be cut by 2019.
On Tuesday February 2nd France's pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi announced that it would be shedding up to 600 jobs over three years. Just before Christmas another drug maker, Servier, revealed that more than 600 posts will go, while Swiss company Novartis is also discreetly losing up to 200 positions in France. The news of the job losses comes despite the fact that some of the firms are not only profitable but have also been picking up taxpayers' cash aimed at protecting employment. Mathilde Goanec reports.
Insecure, short-term work is becoming the norm among many sections of French society. Fixed-term contracts lasting for up to only 18 months, jobs exempted from strict employment rules and temporary work or seasonal posts are now the lot of thousands of workers, particularly women, young people and 'senior citizens' over the age of 50. And this employment 'flexibility' looks set to be extended. Prime minister Manuel Valls has said he is considering plans to adjust the full-time permanent employment contract in France to ensure that bosses of smaller firms are not “bound hand and foot” by rules and regulations. Yet, as the most recent jobless figures show, the labour force flexibility that already exists is singularly failing to dent the relentless march of unemployment in the country. Mediapart's Mathilde Goanec spoke to people on the wrong side of this brave new world of flexible working.
