Faced with labor shortages, agriculture and hotel-restaurant are turned to the Maghreb countries.
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They are more and more numerous. In 2022, the Directorate General of Foreigners in France (DGEF) issued 22,000 seasonal work authorizations to foreigners outside the European Union. And according to the French Office of Immigration and Integration (OFII), more than 10,000 workers have already arrived in France, twice as in 2021. Growth which is explained by “the lifting of the constraints health and increased tensions on the job market, “says the DGEF.
By comparison, in 2012, just over 1,000 first “seasonal worker” residence permit had been issued and there were almost 5,600 in 2019, before the pandemic.
Foreign seasonal workers are 75 % of them Moroccans, almost exclusively men employed in the minimum wage by farmers, in particular in the regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Auvergne- Rhône-Alpes and Occitanie.
Bilateral labor agreements specify the rules in terms of recruitment of foreign seasonal workers. Those concluded by France with Morocco and Tunisia date back to 1963. They provide for example a medical examination in the offices of the French Immigration and Integration Office (OFII) in Morocco or Tunisia, taking In charge by France of part of the transport of seasonal workers or the fact that these must be reported on their return to their country of origin.
“There is no reflection “
The Franco-Moroccan Convention also provides that France communicates once a year at least its workforce needs and that Morocco is the state of the availability of workers, while the agreement between Paris and Tunis from 2008 Concerted Migration Management establishes a target of 2,500 Tunisian seasonal workers.
From time to time, the news recalls the importance of these foreign workers. In the context of covid-19 pandemic and border closure, planes could be chartered by employers to transport agricultural seasonal workers. An air bridge between Morocco and Haute-Corse was notably organized in October 2020 to save the harvest of clementines.
Most recently, the Union of the Hotel-Restauration Union of Trades and Hotel Industries said it had signed an agreement on June 30 with the Tunisian employment center to facilitate the arrival of several thousand seasonal workers in France. The idea is that the two parties identify and select emigration candidates in Tunisia and that their CV is accessible free of charge to employers on an online platform. “This initiative is private and its contours are blurred both from the point of view of volumes and employers, however warns the director of the OFII, Didier Leschi. To bring a seasonal worker, you need an employment contract, know where people are housed, a work permit, a visa … “
“We are rather preparing the winter season, specifies the UMIH. This summer, many restaurants have adapted by closing certain days of the week.” The sector assesses 200,000 its Hiring needs for the year.
“Calling foreign seasonal workers is a facility, considers his side Mr. Leschi. There is no reflection both on the side of the Ministry of Agriculture and of the Ministry of Labor to, for example, take in Loads the refugees already present on the territory, build vocational training courses and meet the needs of agriculture. “
Questioned, a framework of the Ministry of the Interior delivers his analysis more broadly, under the cover of anonymity: “There is room for a public debate on the little hands that make the economy live, the Unqualified immigration. But the sectors must also ask the question of their attractiveness and the levels of remuneration. “