All sectors of the French electronics group are growing and concerned by this vast recruitment campaign next year.
QM with AFP
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Uno major corporate reorganization to come. 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,” said 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 affected during the health crisis due to Covid-19.
“Our activities – defense and security, aeronautics and space, digital identity and security, including cybersecurity – are all growing, which explains our significant recruitment needs, in particular young talents”, stressed for his part the CEO of Thales, Patrice Caine, in an interview with the Sunday newspaper. France, the main country of establishment of the French group, concentrates almost half of the planned recruitments (5,500) and is distributed throughout the territory.
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Strong growth momentum since 2015
The movement is similar in the major areas where Thales is established: 3,350 recruitments in Europe (including 1,050 in the United Kingdom), 730 in Asia, mainly in Singapore, 730 in North America, more than 600 in Australia and 550 in India, where the group has a design office in aeronautics and engineering activities dedicated to digital security.
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“This growth dynamic has existed for many years, since 2015 we have recruited at least 5,000 people per year”, observed Clément de Villepin in front of a few journalists.
In 2022, 11,500 people were hired, 32% of whom were women, bringing the workforce to 77,000 employees – not counting the 4,500 in its Land Transport division currently being sold. The group had not laid off during the pandemic, in particular having switched to other activities of employees working in the aeronautics sector.
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Research and development, the main source of recruitment
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 recruitments, the remaining 20% are industrial production and logistics activities.
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“Like all companies in the sector”, Thales says it is facing recruitment difficulties but has so far achieved its objectives. “There are significantly more open positions than young graduates coming out of schools,” he argued.