The Job Centre is up and running

With 12,000 employees working at the Market, Rungis is an important employment resource. The Job Centre (Point Emploi) was started up in 2009 to help Market operators find skilled staff. The first priority is recruitment, although related issues like training are also taken into account.

Conceived in 2008 to support the activity of Rungis Market by encouraging local recruitment, the Job Centre (Point Emploi) has been operational since February 2009 and it was officially inaugurated on 7 April. Joining forces with the seven towns around the Market, grouped into an employment basin committee (Comité de Bassin d'Emplois), SEMMARIS contributed to this effort by providing one employee and 230-square metres of office space and dedicate spaces on the Market's website. The State (via the sub-Prefecture and departmental department in charge of labour, employment and professional training), the Ile-de-France region and the General Council of the Val-de-Marne department are also backing this project, and help fund it. Nor should we forget the operational partners, like Unigros and the trade organizations representing Market companies, the national employment agency (Pôle Emploi), various training organizations, et al.

Matching applicants to needs

The Job Centre operates on the principle of learning and meeting Market companies’ needs by proposing the most suitable applicants. Its goal is to pre-select skills according to criteria specific to operators’ job vacancies, while at the same time providing follow-up after the recruitment. This is a necessity in view of the working conditions at the Market, which can be considered difficult (night shifts, working in the cold, etc.), although Market jobs also offer real possibilities for career development.

To that end, the Job Centre collects job offers and applications, simplifying the initial contact between employers and job seekers. In practice, its offices are open to the public every morning, or by appointment in the afternoon, and the staff can also assist companies directly, in their premises. In October 2009, the Job Centre also set up an online system, called “Oser Rungis” (Try Rungis), to develop web contacts, to let applicants enter their profile in a database, or to consult applicants pre-selected by the Job Centre for companies according to their demands, etc. (www.oser-rungis.fr)

In order to transmit the needs and find potential applicants, a network of partners has been set up in the Val de Marne and surrounding departments, with associations, private employment agencies and local authorities. As a result of this, after operating for just under a year, (from March to December 2009), the Job Centre has been contacted by a thousand job seekers. Half of them left CV on the website and the centre receives about thirty applicants every week. On the other side, the Job Centre handled 95 vacancies and successfully filled 70 of them.

Most jobs at the Market are concerned by this service, such as cashiers, billing clerks in particular, packers, shop assistants, salespeople, etc. The recruitment follow-up generally starts after the trial period, and the fact that companies are quite loyal, calling on the Job Centre several times a year, makes the process simpler. 

Maintaining competence

While the Job Centre gears its actions to the employment and recruitment priority, it will gradually integrate training issues and, generally speaking, maintaining the level of competence at Rungis over the long term.  A joint training action for sales assistants has already be organized with Ifocop (Institut de Formation Commerciale Permanente), which has had a centre at the Market since 1970. This partnership will undoubtedly be followed by others, making it easier for people who have been unemployed for a long time to find work placements in companies. Other training organizations like Ifocop are also present at Rungis, for example, the CFA Poissonnerie, Patrimoine et Terroirs or AFT-IFTIM.

HR service for small companies

The Job Centre hosts a partner service for SMEs with less than ten employees, backed by the employment basin committee (Comité de Bassin d’Emploi). This is a free advisory service for managers, covering many issues, such as administrative concerns (lower taxes, for example), how to recruit and retain the right employees, job forecasting, training, problem-solving, etc. This unit was set up as a “human resource service platform” for these companies, and it also assists employees, by helping them with career plans and skills assessments, informing them about professional training opportunities (particularly personal training leave), credits for work experience, and advice to find training courses and providers.