2023-12-19 17:51:58
Absent from the debates around the immigration bill, employers finally spoke on Tuesday, December 19, while discussions between the government and the oppositions dragged on in the National Assembly. “It’s not the bosses who are massively demanding immigration, it’s the economy”explained Patrick Martin, president of Medef, on Radio Classique, emphasizing that “by 2050, unless we reinvent our social model and our economic model, we would need 3.9 million foreign employees.”
Faced with labor shortages in almost all sectors of the economy after the health crisis, employers have nevertheless remained silent in recent months, to the great dismay of the government which hoped for support from economic circles. Only a few federations primarily concerned, such as that of hoteliers and restaurateurs, or personal services, have stepped up to the plate in favor of regularization. The text, through its article 3, however, aimed to respond to these difficulties by creating a residence permit for immigrant workers working in professions in shortage. “It was the employers who asked for more workers”, said the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, in The worldin November 2022, presenting the content of the text.
In this context, the exit of the president of Medef obviously did not go unnoticed. She nonetheless remains extremely cautious. Patrick Martin says he regrets that the economic aspect of the debate on immigration is “hidden” by the question of regularizations. And rather evokes the long-term challenge, namely the demographic decline and the aging of the population, which will both dry up the active population and create new needs around old age. “We did not ultimately question what is essential: will we need or not immigrant labor, of course legal (…) from 2036?added Patrick Martin. We think we will have difficulty escaping this, like many other countries which have made this choice. »
Embarrassment
Historically, employers have long played a driving role in migration policy., recalls the employers’ historian and CNRS researcher Hervé Joly. “Until the crisis of the 1970s, immigration was encouraged by liberal circles and the right, because it promoted competition in the labor market and made it possible to recruit cheaper labor. Without this always being publicly assumed, because the unions and the left were rather hostile to it. »
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