The energy company EDF has decided on a “moratorium” on contracts for 2023 due to “its difficult financial situation” after record losses in 2022, a company spokesman told AFP on Thursday.
EDF has decided to suspend its hiring while it “takes stock of its personnel needs”, to better guide its priorities, at a time when the company is going through “a difficult situation”, explained this spokesperson, confirming information from the newspaper Les Echos .
The announcement was recently made internally in a work email sent by the hiring manager to his teams.
The number of expected hires has not been made public by EDF, which also announced on Monday the arrival of a new deputy director of Human Resources, Caroline Chavanas, in anticipation of the replacement of the current director, Christophe Carval, at the exit to inactivity. in the coming months.
Caroline Chavanas is a defector from the military manufacturer Naval Group, after a career that saw her start in China and work at IT companies and then Thales.
Record loss in 2022
This hiring suspension comes at a crucial time for EDF. The company, in the middle of the process of nationalization, faces numerous industrial and financial challenges, which would prefer the reverse contracting.
EDF must straighten out the production of the existing nuclear fleet and prepare for the construction of at least six reactors, two main priorities announced by the government. Contacted by AFP, the Ministry of Economy and Finance did not want to react.
The electrician closed the year 2022 with a record loss of 17.9 billion euros, attributing part of his ills to the Arenh mechanism (Regulated access to historical nuclear electricity).
This mechanism, which EDF is asking to be abandoned, against government advice, forces it to resell its electricity to its competing suppliers, leading to “under-remuneration of the company”, according to its CEO, Luc Rémont.
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 enacted, modifies the contract of new hires as of September, by eliminating the special pension regime for the electricity and gas industries.
Source: BFM TV
