The role of the department for the development of employment and training of the National Employment Administration (Agence pour le développement de l'emploi - ADEM) is to match job vacancies with job applications.

In the interests of full employment and market analysis, any job vacancy must be declared at the ADEM.

Who is concerned?

All employers who wish to hire a worker (salaried worker or apprentice, worker from a non-EU country, disabled worker or worker with reduced working capacity) must make a vacant position declaration to the ADEM.

What are the prerequisites?

Informing the ADEM of a job vacancy implies that the requirements in terms of human resources have been analysed beforehand.

In order to declare a vacant apprenticeship position to the career guidance department (Service de l'orientation professionnelle), employers must first prove that they are entitled to train apprentices.

How to proceed

Declaring a job vacancy

Any business which wishes to recruit personnel must submit a vacant position declaration to the ADEM.

This declaration must be made at least 3 working days before any publication in the press or via any other means of communication.

The form to be used depends on the profile of the worker sought:

• recruitment of a salaried worker;
• recruitment of a young trainee;
• recruitment of a disabled worker;
• recruitment of an apprentice;
• recruitment of a worker by a social support organisation;
• recruitment of a worker with reduced working capacity (beneficiary of an external redeployment decision);
• recruitment of a young person (employment initiation contract (contrat d'initiation à l'emploi - CIE)): there is no specific form. An employer may send his application clearly specifying his needs:
  • either on paper;
  • or by filling in the 'Engagement d'un salarié' form (recruitment of a salaried worker).

If he wishes, the employer may use the same approach if he wants to recruit a student. However, there is no obligation to do so.

Recruiting a worker from a non-EU country

Employers who wish to hire a worker from a non-EU country must state this immediately in their declaration of a vacant position to the ADEM.

In order to do this, they must fill in the annex to the declaration of a vacant position form (formulaire d’indication d’intention et d’information de l’ADEM en vue d’une demande ultérieure d’un certificat) when making the initial declaration.

The ADEM then has a three-week deadline to put forward a suitable candidate on the local job market.

Once the three-week deadline has passed, the employer may apply to the Foreign workforce department (service de main d'oeuvre étrangère) for a certificate giving them the authority to recruit a non-EU national.

The certificate is drawn up within five working days of the date the employer makes the application.

Respecting the quotas for disabled workers

Any private-sector employer with at least 25 salaried workers is required to hire at least one disabled worker on a full-time basis. This quota stands at 2 % of the total number of workers for businesses with at least 50 salaried workers and 4 % of the total number of workers for businesses with at least 300 salaried workers.

If an employer hires a number of disabled workers which is above the compulsory employment rate, he is exempt from paying the employer's contribution of the social security charges for these workers. These contributions are covered by the state budget.

Candidates proposed by the ADEM

Vacant position declarations are considered as job offers. Except in specific cases, these offers are published anonymously on the ADEM terminals. Jobseekers must contact their professional advisor who makes sure that the jobseeker's profile corresponds to the position before passing on the details to the company.

The offer is considered as open for two months. After the two months have passed, the employer must inform the ADEM that he wishes to keep the job vacancy open.

When the ADEM identifies a registered jobseeker whose profile corresponds to a position offered by an employer, it contacts the employer and the applicant and makes a job offer, inviting the applicant to contact the employer.

Searching for a jobseeker registered at the ADEM

The employer can personally carry out a search for a potential future employee on the job applications website of the ADEM: the search can be filtered by profession, then by profile and then by skills.

The names of the applicants do not appear in the search results; instead a file number is listed.

The employer can then:

• view the profiles of the candidates which interest him;
• choose, if he wishes, to invite the candidate for interview or contact his professional advisor for further information;
• shortlist the candidate by clicking on 'Retenir la demande' (shortlist the request).

Once he has shortlisted all the profiles that interest him, the employer may contact the competent professional advisor directly online by clicking on 'Contacter le conseiller professionnel' (contact the professional advisor) or by telephone, indicating the numbers of the selected profiles.

Depending on the employer's request, the professional advisor responsible for the file:

• contacts the employer and applicant and makes a job offer inviting the applicant to contact the employer;
• or contacts the employer who wishes to receive further information about the candidate (for example, his CV) before arranging an appointment.