Many hiring prospects for 2021, estimates Pôle emploi

Despite the health crisis linked to the coronavirus epidemic, employment prospects are “encouraging” for 2021, according to the annual “labor needs” survey of Pôle emploi published on Tuesday, which also shows a decrease recruitment difficulties anticipated by employers.

The survey estimates the number of recruitment projects for 2021 at 2.723 million, or 30,000 more than in 2019 (2.693 million), an increase of 1.1%. Pôle emploi had not communicated on this survey last year, the health crisis having completely reshuffled the cards.

Companies “in the starting blocks”

The operator “took the party” to make a comparison with 2019, “the last year for which things went normally”, explained the study and performance director of Pôle emploi Stéphane Ducatez, presenting the data during a press videoconference.

He praised the “extremely positive and encouraging” results, noting that “we feel that companies are a little in the starting blocks: as soon as the health restrictions are lifted, they will be inclined to hire”. In 2020, after a “very dynamic” start to the year in terms of hiring, they collapsed in the spring with the arrival of Covid-19 and “overall, there was 17.6% of fewer hires in 2020 than in 2019, ”he said.

Sustainable hiring

For 2021, 64.3% of the projects envisaged are sustainable recruitments, down slightly compared to 2019 (-0.2 point). The proportion of establishments anticipating hiring is roughly the same at 26.5% against 26.4% in 2019 and more than two out of three projects concern establishments with less than 50 employees, also indicates the study.

This annual survey, carried out in collaboration with Credoc between October and December 2020, covered 450,200 establishments. Hiring intentions differ from the total number of hires, in particular because hiring an employee from another company can lead to cascading recruitments. In 2019, 78% of recruiters who announced that they had a hiring intention made at least one hire.