Briançon: Minister of Health and Labor, Catherine Vautrin, meets sectors under pressure

Imagining solutions for employment, retaining seasonal workers , facilitating tailor-made recruitment and training to ensure the economic future of mountain environments, this is the immense challenge that tourism stakeholders in the Hautes-Alpes wish to take up.

Hoteliers, members of the Chamber of Agriculture, business leaders, resort and ski school directors, all spoke to Catherine Vautrin, making the same observation: "the sector is struggling to recruit enough seasonal workers". The Minister of Labor, Health, Solidarity and Families was visiting Briançon this Wednesday, February 26.

For Arnaud Murgia, the mayor of Briançon and president of the community of communes, one of the solutions could be to focus on more multi-activity for seasonal workers.

"We are at full employment, but at the same time we have problems with recruitment, manpower and therefore housing," he explained in the preamble.

"Seasonality, which leads to multiple activities, is a real asset, particularly for our agriculture, because seasonal workers can keep their farms and livestock. We also need to solve the cost of housing. A seasonal worker cannot spend half of their salary on housing," he added.

Among the issues addressed, the question of housing was most often mentioned. Its scarcity is due to an ever-increasing number of second homes and vacant housing, but also to the price per square meter, estimated on average at 3,777 euros per square meter in Briançonnais, instead of 3,017 euros/m2 for the national average.

"This is an extremely important subject for the attractiveness of businesses, especially since owners of second homes do not consume all year round. The government has committed to tightening the tax system for Airbnb rentals. We must allow seasonal workers to find accommodation all season long," said Minister Catherine Vautrin, also recalling the expansion of zero-rate loan zones to allow better accessibility to property.

Providing employment to undocumented people to address the labor shortage? This is a solution suggested by several stakeholders, including Laurent Gabet, arboriculturist and first vice-president of the Hautes-Alpes Chamber of Agriculture, and Vincent Bonnardel, deputy deputy of Valérie Rossi, also a business leader in the restaurant industry.

The presence on the territory of foreign people seeking employment who cannot be recruited is considered by many to be a paradox.

To this question, Minister Catherine Vautrin responded that a list of professions in demand already exists in France to facilitate recruitment.