French industry will need “100,000 to 200,000” foreign workers in 10 years, according to Roland Lescure

This is an impressive figure, representative of the lack of labor from which many economic sectors suffer. Questioned on Franceinfo this Saturday morning, the Minister Delegate in charge of Industry Roland Lescure returned to the needs of these professionals in the coming years. The observation is clear: “Today, we need everything in industry”, and hundreds of thousands of foreign workers may well be needed in the future.

In industry, “1.3 million jobs” will need to be filled in the next ten years, calculated the delegate minister. However, even if we train as many young people as possible for these vacant positions, there will be a shortage of “100,000” to “200,000” people to find in Europe or elsewhere in the next ten years. “I am not saying that we will have to open the floodgates of economic immigration”, but “in the next ten years, there are particular talents that will be lacking”, warned Roland Lescure.

Welders, metalworkers, researchers... While many positions are to be filled, “let's fire on all cylinders. Let's focus on training. Let's go look for young people in the suburbs [...]. “But let’s be open”, even if it means looking for workers outside France, pleaded the member of the government.

And to oppose a Manichean vision of immigration. “It’s not the big replacement, it’s not the tsunami. It is a somewhat peaceful vision of this subject”, in the face of a “demographic bomb”, while immigration “is also what made France”, according to the delegate minister. “France has been built for decades thanks to immigration. The fantasy of immigration does not exist [...]. On the other hand, reasoned, reasonable immigration, which helps us [...], it exists,” he insisted.

These comments come at a time when the debate around the immigration bill is in full swing in Parliament, and the secondary sector is facing a lack of manpower to support the development of factories in the region. Article 3 of the bill, which provided for the regularization of undocumented workers in so-called “shortage” professions, has particularly sparked controversy. Recently, La Fabrique de l’industrie sounded the alarm on this thorny issue, which worries professionals and authorities alike.

This sector is far from being the only one to have to look abroad to find workers. Last September, a note from France Stratégie, attached to Matignon, looked at the needs for the energy renovation of buildings in 2030. Here too, the observation was clear: if “635,000 positions would be filled by 2030 in the building trades”, there are far from enough young people in training or beginners. “It will therefore be necessary to appeal, even more than in the past, to immigrant labor, the unemployed, retraining and professional mobility,” concluded the report.