A generation forced to be flexible

PARIS - A year ago, wine growers in the Beaujolais, one of the heartlands of French viticulture, went through an annual panic attack.

After nurturing their grapes through rain and hail and protecting them from pests, would they find enough labour to pick the harvest when it was ripe?

With many French people loath to do a back-aching, sweaty job that offers just 22 centimes (47 cents) for every kilo of grapes swung into the back hod, the growers cobbled together a hotchpotch of foreign labour.

For the 10-day stint of the "vendange", they hired migrant workers from Turkey, Poland and China, supplemented by French and foreign students and travelling people.

This year, a flood of local people are signing up for the harvest, something the wine makers welcome, as it means they do not have the cost of providing accommodation.

Yet it's a change that also tells eloquently of how the economic crisis is biting - and of how expectations in France's job market are lowering.

With a degree in hydraulic engineering, Julien Ballard, 27, was among 900 people who queued up at a hiring fair for wine growers in a suburb of Lyons last week. The "recruitment forum" was organised by the local Pole d'Emploi, or job centre, to help long-term unemployed.

"I've been looking for a job for a year, but there's nothing, so I take whatever work I can find, even if in professional terms it doesn't provide any benefit," said Ballard.

He is not alone in having to be flexible. In France today, more and more highly qualified people - graduates from university and business schools, individuals with good technical skills - are taking lower-paid jobs, working casually, doing office temp jobs, sharing jobs with a counterpart or even doing time at petrol stations and supermarket checkouts.

Together with the stick of necessity, a small carrot of incentive is prompting people to find work that they once would have shunned rather than wait for a job in line with their education and aspirations.

The Government this year introduced a flexible benefits system under which job seekers who get occasional work would not suffer a cut in basic unemployment pay.

Unemployment in France was 2.524 million in June, an increase of 25.7 per cent over a year earlier. Among people aged under 25, the numbers have increased by 35 per cent. Among those in work, around 2.8 million people are in temporary or fixed-term jobs.

All this is a turbulent challenge for France, which places great faith in a system designed to educate people to a high level and then provide them with a secure, well-protected job that matches their skills.

One of the country's most cherished folk memories is that of the "Trente Glorieuses," the three decades of unbroken growth that spanned the 50s, 60s and 70s.

The people who were raised in that time are prone to rabbit on about how their family bought their first car, went on its first foreign holiday, moved into a bigger home.

Today, the mood is anxious, but especially so among the follow-on generation. The diplomas that they were told to strive for in the Eighties and Nineties are no longer a guarantee of a decent job or, indeed, of any job.

A report by a social research unit attached to the Prime Minister's office last month highlights a growing phenomenon of "social disconnect" (declassement social) among people aged in their 30s and 40s.

Between 22 and 25 per cent of people in this age group will have worse jobs and a lower social position than their parents, it said.

Camille Peugny, a professor of sociology at the Paris VIII University whose work provided the core of the report, looked at people born between 1959 and 1963 and who rose to executive level.

In this group, there was a nearly one-in-two chance that their son would rise no higher than office worker, technician or manual worker by the age of 40.

"Social disconnect is not just a fear, it truly exists, it is experienced by a growing proportion of younger generations who are victims of job insecurity, mass unemployment and a clear drop in their standard of living," said Peugny.