“Having the possibility of accommodating our employees is already almost half of the job of actually recruiting”. Anthony, 30 years old and restaurateur in Mimizan, measures how lucky he is to be able to offer his seasonal workers a roof under which they can spend the summer. He adds: “We have just bought a new restaurant and it was really essential in the choice of this one to have rooms available”. According INSEE, the total number of seasonal jobs in France amounted to more than 4 million in 2017, including more than 780,000 during the July peak. So, with such demand and in a context of shortage, finding housing quickly becomes a major challenge.
“We have been alerting the public authorities to these issues for more than 15 years”. A bit exasperated, David Vallaperta denounces the lack of responsiveness of those. The regional secretary of the CFDT in charge of employment and housing in New Aquitaine points to a “major issue” which leads to “difficulties in recruiting for certain structures”.
A glaring lack of housing resulting from the rise of real estate rental platforms. These lead to a loss of attractiveness for monthly rentals in attractive territories during summer periods. So, landlords are moving more towards “weekly” leases, which have become much more profitable. “In addition to that, there is inflation, we cannot afford to put 900 or 1,000 € in rent, plague Doriane, waitress in a restaurant in Charente-Maritime. Today, it has become a criterion for almost everyone to be accommodated, otherwise the season is no longer profitable”.
“We receive calls every day from seasonal workers looking for accommodation”
And Emma Ory, employee of the “Nomad: the house of seasonal workers” goes in this direction: “We receive calls every day from seasonal workers who are looking for accommodation. Before, we mainly dealt with access to employment and labor rights, but gradually we had to take up the issue of housing”. And David Vallaperta to bid: “For the last four or five years, it has taken on dramatic proportions”.
Not enough to be alarmist, however, according to Aurélie Loubes, regional councilor in New Aquitaine, in charge of Tourism: “For the moment this is not a brake on tourism in our region. We had an excellent season in 2022. And 2021-2020 were rather good performances compared to the circumstances linked to Covid-19. We had no negative impact on attendance.
What about tourist satisfaction then? Here again, the regional councilor is rather measured: “We have no results of satisfaction studies which show that this can have a negative impact on it. But it remains a point of vigilance, because professionals can have problems delivering their offers. There is not a general meeting or a board of directors in which the professionals and those who represent them do not raise these issues with us”.
Initiatives to stem the phenomenon
So we have to get organized and all initiatives are welcome. “Last March, we voted for a new plan intended to encourage the supply of seasonal housing,” says Aurélie Loubes. Without boasting of having solved the problem: “It’s a very serious problem so I don’t pretend to say that we are going to solve it alone. But we are making decisions that go in that direction.”
On a more local scale, all means are good to try to stem the problem: provision of high school boarding schools in Brittany and in the Landes, former campsites in the Arcachon basin, rooms at the inhabitant or even lodgings in the Dordogne. “It is still insufficient, plague David Vallaperta, of the CFDT. We are starting to be a little more heard, we feel that there is an awareness of local elected officials and a lot of economic players. We are in the process of making many people understand that if we do nothing, we will soon be in territories that live only on the economy of second homes”. And to conclude: “Is this really what we want? “. Not sure.