More than one in two micro-enterprises or SMEs (51%) are looking to hire, but 94% have difficulty finding the “right profile”, according to a survey* published this Tuesday by the Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises. companies (CPME). The first cause mentioned by the leaders questioned is the absence of a candidate for 74% of them, ahead of the lack of skills (47%).

The results of this survey corroborate other Banque de France studies on all companies, which show that hiring difficulties in June reached a level not seen in just over a year that the institution has been measuring this phenomenon.

These difficulties are explained by cyclical reasons – the strong economic recovery after the 2020 recession and the change of activity sector of many employees with the Covid-19 crisis – but also by structural deficiencies in the French labor market, such as the lack of a specially requested qualification (computer science, etc.).

“The issue is training, and before training, orientation. For years, I would say almost decades, we train young people in sectors that hire less”, stressed François Asselin, president of the CPME, at BFM Business.

Working relationship

“This problem is all the more acute given that one in four managers faces significant turnover” in their workforce, underlines the CPME. According to the survey of the professional organization, the reasons for this “rotation” are the desire to change sectors (51%) and to dedicate themselves to something other than their professional life (53%). “As if the relationship with work became secondary in the priorities of life,” says François Asselin. Nearly a third (33%) also cite employees’ desire to go to work for a competitor that offers more, the CPME notes.

In this context, added to unprecedented inflation for 40 years, 65% of managers have decided to increase salaries this year and 40% have done so for all their employees. Those who have not done so invoke in 78% of cases the lack of financial capacity of the company. In addition, 68% of VSE and SME managers state that they have “recently” paid bonuses to their employees (individual or collective such as the exceptional purchasing power bonus).

Faced with recruitment difficulties, François Asselin believes that the French unemployment insurance is “perfectible”. “It is not effective enough”, he lamented this Tuesday, five days after President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement of the launch “from this summer” of a new unemployment insurance reform. “The best insurance system in terms of unemployment is the one that correctly compensates those who have an accident at work but at the same time hangs them in the labor market”, says François Asselin.

*The CPME survey was conducted based on 2,362 responses from VSE and SME managers to an online questionnaire conducted between June 16 and July 12.