The number of workers posted to France remains far below the pre-Covid level

2024-01-03 19:00:11

Published on Jan 3, 2024 at 6:00 p.m.

Apparently, the progress is notable. In 2022, excluding road transport, just over 220,000 employees will be seconded at least once to France by foreign companies established abroad, i.e. 10% more than in 2021, according to a study published this Wednesday by the Ministry of Labor. Some workers having carried out several missions, there were a total of 646,900 secondments last year, or 30,000 more than the previous year.

But in reality, the increase was minimal. The actual number of posted workers present on a given date in France was on average 59,300 in 2022, or 1,800 more than the year before. This is barely more than in 2020 and 18% less than the record of 2019, when we reached 73,000.

Lack of real rebound

The Covid epidemic was obviously at the origin of the halt to the development of seconded work observed at the turn of the decade. But the absence of a strong rebound afterwards can be linked to the tightening of European regulations. In July 2020, a directive was adopted which strengthens the obligation for companies to pay posted workers like their French colleagues.

The 2022 data also confirms the sectoral change that has occurred since the epidemic, when construction took first place from the industry in terms of posted work. Construction is the only sector whose seconded workforce has not fallen compared to pre-Covid. It constitutes 42% of the employment of seconded employees.

The number of employees posted to France at least once a year in 2022 was 18% lower than the 2019 record.

Industry, where the use of posted work had fallen by a third in 2020, experienced a slight rebound in 2022, to 29% of the total. But the margin is still significant before it returns to first place, even if the clouds are gathering over construction.

The share of services also increased slightly, to 21%. Note that of the 12,700 employees seconded from the tertiary sector, a third work in the scientific and technical activities sector, which requires qualified employment.

8% of employees posted to agriculture

If agriculture is often cited when we talk about posted work, it only represents 8% of these jobs, an almost stable share compared to 2021, with workforce “significantly below that before the health crisis” , underlines the Ministry of Labor.

Another thing is its weight in total employment in the agricultural sector. As in 2021, the recourse rate, which relates the employment of seconded employees to non-seconded employee employment, stood at 1.5% in 2022, compared to an average of 0.3% across all sectors. “Two regions have recourse – much – greater than the national average: Paca (8%, and even 19.7% in Bouches-du-Rhône) and “to a lesser extent”, Occitanie (2.1 %), regions which concentrate respectively 43% and 15% of seconded agricultural employment.

Detached work is more present in the North-East and South-East departments and those bordering Spain.

These geographical variations are a strong characteristic of posted employment as a whole, oscillating from only 0.1% in Creuse to 1.3% in Loire-Atlantique. “The appeal rates are generally higher in the departments of the North-East and South-East and in those bordering Spain than in the Center or the West, with the exception of Loire-Atlantique”, notes the Ministry of Labor, which also emphasizes that posted work is almost systematically male: 93% of the employees concerned are men (99% even in construction), the most feminized activities being agriculture (15% women) and services (14%).

More than one in 10 posted employees is Portuguese

Workers from the European Union continue to dominate, but their weight is down slightly, to 70%. 12% of posted employees, or more than one in ten, are Portuguese, even if their share is decreasing, just like that of Poles and Spaniards (9% and 7%). Without this having a link with the war with Russia, outside Europe, it is the Ukrainians who are the most numerous, but far behind these nationalities (4%).

Note, finally, that the average duration of secondment decreased in 2022, going from 100 to 94 days, for each employee having been seconded at least once to France over the twelve months.