The bleeding is impressive. Between 2015 and 2021, the labor inspectorate lost 16% of its staff. It is also finding it increasingly difficult to recruit. In a report made public on Wednesday February 28, the Court of Auditors discreetly launched a warning message on the difficulties encountered by this administration which plays an essential role as guardian of the law in companies.
The drop in the number of civil servants in this service is part of a broader movement which follows the desire to cut the wage bill. It is also, sometimes, the result of transfers of agents from one sector of the State to another.
The Ministry of Labor, like others, has scaled back, with 15% fewer positions in 2021 compared to 2015. However, it is the labor inspection which has contributed the most to these “job savings” by suffering a drain on its workforce of nearly “740 full-time equivalent”according to the Court of Auditors.
Two candidates for a job to be awarded
This decline is coupled with major problems in renewing teams. Like the entire public service, the labor inspectorate struggles to hire, but the phenomenon seems particularly marked within it. This “attractiveness deficit” is highlighted by the number of people taking the inspector exam: from 2015 to 2019, it fell by 47%. Then it recovered, but as the number of open positions also increased at the same time, the “selectivity” tests collapsed: in 2022, there were two candidates for a job to be awarded, compared to twelve to one in 2015. “It is likely that, under these conditions, the jury will not be able to fill all the positions, except to select [personnes] whose skills are insufficient with regard to the requirements of the competition”underlines the Court of Auditors.
This lack of attractiveness ends up generating significant dysfunctions: the vacancy rate (that is to say unoccupied positions) in the “sections” of inspection reached 18% in 2022, or five additional points compared to 2018. ” action plan “ has, of course, been put in place in order to reverse the trend: improvement of career development, communication operation, broadening of “recruitment pool”, etc. However, these measures have so far proven to be ineffective.
The solutions suggested by the Court of Auditors to resolve this crisis quietly will take time to produce their effects. They involve in particular an even greater opening of the labor inspection to new profiles and by “advances in terms of remuneration”. The human resources department, which deals with social ministries, is also invited to “continue its transformation as a “service in the service of services””in particular by registering “in a partnership logic” with other administrations which have a say in the management of teams (Bercy, general management of the civil service, etc.).