A record number of hirings to come for executives for 2022. Apec, the Association for the employment of executives, has just delivered its forecasts: the previous record for the number of executive hirings in one year, which dates of 2019 with 280,000 recruitments, should be beaten this year. The trend started clearly in the last quarter of 2021. The number of offers there was 25 points higher than in the same period of 2019.
Gilles Gateau, the director general of Apec indicated that the job site apec.fr, which concentrates 45% of the market for executive job offers, had never experienced such activity. Moreover, according to figures released by Apec, 67% of companies intend to hire at least one executive this year. Large companies in particular are the most confident. A very high figure, according to the association. Three sectors stand out: health and social action, the pharmaceutical industry and real estate.
One might think that everything is rosy for some 4.5 million executives. Their unemployment rate is only 3.7%. However, one category does not benefit from the wave of hiring: it is the over 55s. Apec lists more than 100,000 senior executives registered with Pôle Emploi who are unable to find work. For some, the situation is very difficult: 9% of unemployed senior executives are on RSA.
For the director general of Apec, this situation is incomprehensible in a period when it is so difficult to recruit. Companies want to let go of ballast on their recruitment criteria, take candidates who do not have all the technical skills for example, but they prefer to turn to younger applicants, who do not have the required experience, to more experienced executives.
Gilles Gateau believe that they are making a strategic error. They want to bet on the future and hire someone who will stay with them for a long time, but the juniors are precisely those who are most likely to leave them quickly, while the seniors will be very loyal to them.