EDF decides to freeze hiring due to its financial difficulties

EDF has decided to suspend its recruitments while "taking stock of its staffing needs", to better target its priorities, at a time when the company is going through "a difficult situation", explained this spokesperson, confirming information from the newspaper Les Echos.

"There is therefore a moratorium on hiring for 2023", even if "the idea is not to suspend" recruitment "all year round", the same source said.

The announcement was made recently internally in a working email sent by the director of human resources to his teams.

The number of planned hires has not been made public by EDF, which also announced the arrival on Monday of a new deputy director of Human Resources, Caroline Chanavas, in anticipation of the replacement of the current director, Christophe Carval, on the departure into inactivity in the coming months.

Ms. Chanavas is a defector from the military manufacturer Naval Group, after a career that saw her start in China and work in IT companies and then at Thales.

This suspension of recruitment comes at a crucial time for EDF. The company, in the process of complete nationalization, is confronted with numerous industrial and financial challenges, which would rather involve hiring than the reverse.

EDF must both straighten out the production of the existing nuclear fleet and prepare for the construction of at least six reactors, two major priorities announced by the government.

Contacted by AFP, the Ministry of Economy and Finance did not wish to react.

The electrician ended the year 2022 with a record loss of 17,9 billion euros, attributing part of its ills to the Arenh mechanism (Regulated access to historical nuclear electricity).

This mechanism, which EDF is asking to be abandoned, against the advice of the government, forces it to resell its electricity to its supplier competitors, inducing "under-remuneration of the company", according to its CEO Luc Rémont.

"Freezing hiring in view of the industrial challenges facing EDF makes no sense," said the national secretary CFE-Energie of EDF, Amélie Henri.

In terms of human resources, EDF is also experiencing turbulence linked to the pension reform, against which many agents have mobilized since January.

The reform, if it is promulgated, modifies the contract of new recruits from September, by removing the special pension scheme for the electricity and gas industries.