- The France Strategy organization classified the trades according to their vulnerability.
- Whether they are “forever vulnerable” or “hyperconnected”, no sector is spared.
- The study allows us to measure the shock caused by the coronavirus.
In a few weeks, the coronavirus upset the relationship to the work of millions of French people. Caregivers, already tried for years, found themselves on the front line. The garbage collectors, the cashiers, were praised for their social utility. The hairdressers had to lower the curtain. Auto workers have been placed on short-time work. The executives of large groups found themselves in forced telework. All these trades have undergone, at their scale, transformations in their conditions of practice, sometimes brutal.
To better understand these new risks, France Stratégie published a study on Wednesday on the “vulnerability” of the trades during the confinement period. The public body attached to Matignon has identified three main types of risk: economic vulnerability (precarious contracts, sectors where activity is stopped, inability to telecommute), that of living conditions (small accommodation where confinement is less bearable, dependent children, low salary, disability), and finally that which results from working conditions (contact with the public and therefore risk of contamination, physical work, stress).
The risk of prolonged shutdown
Based on these risk factors, the study proposes a classification of trades according to whether or not they combine several vulnerability factors. First, there are those whom France Strategy calls "the forever vulnerable": these are jobs that were already weakened before the crisis and for which the coronavirus does nothing. These include, for example, industrial and construction workers, seafarers, administrative employees or even housekeeping staff. According to the study, 4.2 million people fall into this category, which often combines precarious status, low wages, a physical profession and a greatly reduced activity since March.
The study also estimates that around 4.3 million people can be considered "new vulnerable". If employment in these trades had "resisted well, or even progressed in recent years," notes France Strategy, the economic crisis of the Covid-19 has put everything on the ground. Unsurprisingly, we find here all of the hotel and restaurant industry (owners, servers, cooks), personal service professions (hairdressers, beauticians, etc.), but also culture and sports professionals. If the current moment is particularly difficult, the post-crisis promises to be just as complicated for them: "Their individual vulnerability can affect their ability to rebound, all the more so since the self-employed are numerous," note the authors. For the latter, a prolonged cessation of their activity would permanently threaten them (cash flow difficulties, impossibility of resorting to partial unemployment). Thus, bars and restaurants will not reopen, at best, before June, as Edouard Philippe explained to deputies on Tuesday. In total, there are therefore 8.5 million workers for whom the economic vulnerability is very high during this period.
More than 10 million people "at the front"
The coronavirus crisis also brought to light a category of trades sent "to the front", to use the famous warlike analogy. According to the study, 10.3 million French people fall into this category. The latter are not threatened economically, but “are for the most part subject to an infectious risk through their direct contact with the public: 73% usually face users, clients or patients. »Obviously these are hospital professions (doctors, nurses, nursing assistants), regal professions (police, firefighters, army), but also cashiers or garbage collectors, to which teachers can be added when schools and colleges will reopen. In total, 65% of the workforce in this category are women.
For them, the risk is not only health: “among health professionals, the mental burden and the time pressure due in particular to the reorganization of services and the influx of patients are all factors likely to worsen the conditions of short term work ”explains France Strategy. In addition, "these professionals work more frequently on weekends, evenings or at night".
Risk of burnout
Less subject to economic or health danger, 4 million jobs are affected by a risk of “hyperconnectivity”. These are mainly executives placed in telework. "It can be suffered and, in this sense, cause a reorganization of work," explains the think-tank. The difficulty of organizing this collective effort at a distance and the tendency to hyperconnectivity, to respond to emergencies, expose managers to a deterioration in their working conditions, aggravated by the difficulty in reconciling family and professional life. This tensioning could be the cause of burnout, since before confinement, 81% of managers already declared having excessive amounts of work.
The last category identified by France Strategy, the “forced into partial inactivity” professions, ie around 4 million people. These include, for example, bank employees, accountants, commercial attachés or administrative secretaries. "They work less remotely than managers, which forces them to partial inactivity" explains France Strategy. The most problematic for them is that their support or collective support function is questioned when everyone is "managed" in telework. "This situation carries with it risks of estrangement from the professional sphere and desocialization" concludes the study.
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