aeronautics manufacturers and presidents of the region “optimistic” about the future
It was its first edition. Organized in cooperation between the Regions of France and the Grouping of French Aeronautical and Space Industries (Gifas), Aéro’Régions opened this Thursday, November 18, 2021 at the Airbus aircraft delivery center in Colomiers. “Symbolic place of the expected recovery”, according to Gifas. This event brings together all the regional leaders of France and manufacturers in the aeronautical sector around several themes.
In particular, they deepened the development of training, support for innovation or the challenges for the territories of the emergence of new mobility. In any case, they showed themselves confident about the future of the sector. “Our anticipation is that in 2023 we will find the volumes before the Covid. We are very optimistic,” said the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez. Aeronautics is indeed starting to take off again. The latest experiences with Airbus bear witness to this. Carole Delga thus notes a “beginning of recovery”.
Less loss of jobs than expected
The president of the Occitanie region has also underlined less job loss linked to the health crisis than expected. This represented some 9,000 positions. “We expect several tens of thousands,” recalls Carole Delga. It thus inflicted “very great efforts to keep as many employees as possible” on the part of companies such as Airbus or Safran. The aeronautics sector still cut 8,800 jobs in 2020 in Occitanie and New Aquitaine, said INSEE last April.
The department of Haute-Garonne alone concentrates 4,900 job cuts in this sector. For Carole Delga, the Region must continue to support the industry. “There are still difficulties in recruiting for trades in industry,” she said. Faced with this, regions and industrialists want improve training or combat “stereotypes” on these trades. Fabienne Folli, general delegate of Normandie AeroEspace, thus deemed it necessary to “make people want to join our profession”.