“These employees are paid part-time while the influence of work on their lives is that of full-time”, summarize the economists François-Xavier Devetter and Julie Valentin. Indeed, 45% of cleaning staff in France are in low-wage jobs – i.e. paid less than 60% of the median monthly salary –, compared to 13.5% for all jobs in France, according to the Insee’s 2021 “Employment Survey”; 55% of them work part-time, compared to 18% of all employees.
The two researchers dissect these professions in an article produced for the scientific mediation project “What do we know about work? » from the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for the Evaluation of Public Policies (Liepp), distributed in collaboration with the Liepp and the Presses de Sciences Po on the Emploi channel of Lemonde.fr. Two million people belong to the category of cleaning jobs, which according to economists’ criteria groups together eight professions, from service agents to home helpers, including chambermaids.
All these professions, occupied by more than 80% by women, have in common the fragmentation of their working time, often due to their strong outsourcing by companies: 40% of cleaners in the cleaning sector and work less than twenty-four hours a week, describe the authors – indeed, the minimum weekly duration in the sector is sixteen hours, not twenty-four. Working hours are often concentrated between 6 and 9 a.m. and between 6 and 9 p.m., especially in private companies.
Painful postures
Most of the time, part-time work is therefore endured and periods of inactivity which are not paid by employers are increasing. This operation encourages “the development of forms of employment such as micro-entrepreneurship, strategies for the specialization and deskilling of workers”.
This fragmentation of work is accompanied by degraded working conditions: 60% of workers report painful postures, compared to 34% of all employed workers, according to the “Working Conditions 2019” survey by the Animation Department. of research, studies and statistics from the Ministry of Labor (Dares). Added to this is frequent isolation, a lack of training and careers that progress very slowly. Finally, 32% of cleaners aged 50 to 64 are neither employed nor retired.
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