If global air traffic, paralyzed by the health crisis, will take many more months before returning to its 2019 level, Airbus has not waited to start a sharp increase in the rate of its production: the airlines will have to renew their fleets. by planes that consume less fuel, and therefore emit less CO2, and increase them to cope with the strong growth expected in air traffic in the long term.

To support this ramp-up in the production of commercial aircraft, but also to meet the needs for military aircraft, helicopters and satellites, "the company announces its intention to start the year 2022 with a recruitment plan for around 6,000 people in the worldwide, across the entire group," Airbus said in a statement.

In the immediate future, Airbus does not specify whether these are net hires, nor the number of recruitments by country.

"After this first wave, (...) the number of external recruitments will be reassessed by the middle of 2022 and we will adjust our needs accordingly", adds the group's human resources director, Thierry Baril, quoted in the press release.

The first Airbus A220 from Air France, presented on September 29 in the industrial zone of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport Eric PIERMONT AFP

This is "very good news", welcomed Françoise Vallin, coordinator of the CFE-CGC union within the group.

"After the social plans, these recruitments were necessary to correspond to the peak load" expected, she explained to AFP.

From the start of the pandemic, Airbus had reduced its production rates and announced 15,000 job cuts, including 5,000 in France and 5,100 in Germany, the main countries in which the aircraft manufacturer operates.

The figure had finally been revised downwards in favor of public aid such as partial unemployment schemes by the States.

In the end, the number of group employees fell from 135,000 at the end of 2019 to 126,000 on September 30, 2021, the last figure available.

Subcontractors in the wake

The 6,000 planned hires are justified by the "strong signs of recovery in the aerospace industry" after the pandemic and the need to "prepare the future of aviation and put in place the roadmap for decarbonization" of the aerial, according to Thierry Baril.

A quarter of the planned recruitments will concern “new skills” linked to decarbonisation, digital transformation and cybertechnology.

Airbus human resources director Thierry Baril at the inauguration of the group's management university in Blagnac, near Toulouse, on September 19, 2016 PASCAL PAVANI AFP / Archives

Airbus is studying the development of a hydrogen-powered aircraft by 2035, a concept that involves a thorough review of the entire architecture of the aircraft.

In the field of defence, it is one of the main manufacturers responsible for developing the future air combat system (Scaf), desired by Paris, Berlin and Madrid and which will make extensive use of digital technologies that have yet to be created. .

In the shorter term, to respond to the success of its A320 and A321 single-aisle aircraft, Airbus must significantly increase its production rates.

It plans to produce 65 A320 family aircraft each month from the summer of 2023, more than it has ever built, while their production had dropped to 40 monthly aircraft from the start of the pandemic.

He even plans to mount up to 75 devices per month in 2025.

A juggernaut in the global aeronautics industry, it has hundreds of subcontractors in its wake.

Its new subsidiary Airbus Atlantic (13,000 employees), which brings together aircraft structure assembly activities, plans to hire 700 people this year.

The engine manufacturer and aeronautical equipment manufacturer Safran, which is also benefiting from the planned rate increases at the American Boeing, provides for 12,000 hires, including 3,000 in France.

The health crisis had led him to cut 20,000 jobs worldwide.

For France, the Grouping of French Aeronautical and Space Industries (Gifas), the professional organization of the sector which had 194,000 employees at the end of 2020, estimates the needs for 2022 at "about fifteen thousand hires".

© 2022 AFP