Thales announced on Saturday its wish to recruit 12,000 employees worldwide, including 4,000 job creations in 2023. Forgotten about the pandemic, the French aeronautics and defense sector is launching vast hiring plans.
Thales plans to recruit more than 12,000 employees worldwide in 2023, including 4,000 job creations, driven by the dynamism of the aerospace, defense and security and digital identity sectors, the group announced. “It’s a record year”, underlined the director of human resources of the Clément de Villepin group.
Hirings are broken down into all the group’s business sectors, including the aeronautics sector, whose activity had been damaged during the health crisis due to Covid-19.
Research and development needs
“Our activities – defense and security, aeronautics and space, identity and digital security, including cybersecurity – are all growing, which explains our significant recruitment needs, in particular young talents”, underlined the CEO of Thales, Patrice Caine, in an interview with the Sunday newspaper. France, the main country of establishment of the tricolor group, concentrates nearly half of the planned recruitments (5,500) and distributed throughout the territory.
More than 40% of planned hires relate to research and development activities (artificial intelligence, cyber, algorithms, systems engineers, etc.), i.e. 5,500 people, including 2,200 in France. It is “the sap of what makes the development of Thales”, according to him.
Support functions also represent 40% of recruitment, with the remaining 20% being industrial production and logistics activities.
Driven by the resumption of air traffic
Forgotten about the pandemic, the French aeronautics and defense sector is launching vast hiring plans but is worried about the difficulties encountered in finding rare skills and ensuring the ramp-up.
Driven by the resumption of air traffic, the preparation of future programs and the increase in defense budgets around the world, the 400 companies in the sector employing more than 190,000 people, are planning more than 15,000 hires in France in 2023, according to the Groupement French aeronautical and space industries (Gifas).
Airbus has announced that it expects 3,500 hires in France this year, half of which will be job creations, out of the 13,000 hires it plans in total worldwide.
Safran is counting on 12,000 hires, including 4,500 in France after a year 2022 during which it has already recruited 17,000 people, of which more than 6,000 were job creations.
Same findings at Dassault Aviation, whose parent company has 9,200 employees and expects 1,000 additional hires this year, or the aeronautical equipment manufacturer Daher, which employs 10,500 employees and intends to recruit 1,100 people in 2023, of which 700 will be net creations.
Among the profiles sought, specialists in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data exploitation or new energies (hydrogen, electrification, etc.).