Taking the plunge: with the current crisis, the temptation to change careers is great

Depuis la crise du Covid, de nombreux salariés s'interrogent sur l'opportunité de donner une autre dynamique à leur carrière professionnelle. MAXPPP – Richard Villalon

Selon une étude d’Avenir Actifs en Occitanie, 28 % des salariés identifient l’intelligence artificielle comme le facteur le plus susceptible de bouleverser leur métier.

A seamstress from Aude who changes careers to become a truck driver. A former restaurant worker in Aude, who becomes a dental prosthesis assistant. An insurer from Montpellier, who becomes a nurse. A holiday reception manager who, in Lozère, becomes a professional sharpener. In Nîmes, a former lawyer, who becomes a wine merchant. Or a former employee of Capgemini and Airbus, in Toulouse, who creates his microbrewery in Gruissan (Aude).

In the region, career changes sometimes bring surprising surprises. Radical paths, roads that suddenly branch off. Life changes, for pleasure, most often. Out of passion, too. “France Compétences has conducted a study that shows that, in the majority of cases, professional dissatisfaction is the main driver of change, explains Marie Delon, France CEP coordinator for Occitanie. Working conditions, shift work, and the level of remuneration are also taken into account”.

“The current crisis is playing an accelerating role”

“What I was asked to do did not match my training and what I wanted to do”, confides Delphine, now a winegrower in Cébazan, near Saint-Chinian (Hérault). She previously worked in Nissan-lez-Ensérune, in a fruit juice packaging plant. “Before, I had a job of reason, today, I have a job of passion”, explains Marie, a former lawyer at the Nîmes bar (Gard). She is now the head of two wine cellars.

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Occitanie: nearly 7 out of 10 employees are considering career development

Avenir Actifs in Occitanie, the public service operator My advice on professional development (My CEP) presented its annual barometer on professional development last fall. Entrusted to Ifop, the survey questioned 401 active people in the region. It shows that 69% of Occitan employees are considering a professional development in the next two years. Two fundamental elements support this desire for change: remuneration and job stability. Indeed, 65% of workers in Occitanie “place improving their salary as their top professional priority”. This is 4 points more than the national average. In this respect, 94% of them “consider salary as determining or important in the desire to advance professionally”. Furthermore, 70% of respondents first want to advance within their current company, “a score up 9 points compared to “July 2023”. This is 5 points above the national average. At the same time, 68% want to evolve in the same sector, 8 points above the national average.

“The current crisis, which plays a role in accelerating questions about the meaning and conditions of exercising one's activity, is a period conducive to encouraging professional changes”, explains France Compétences, the national authority for financing and regulating vocational training and apprenticeships, in a note published in January 2022, at the end of the difficult Covid-19 period.

“Job dissatisfaction”, the primary driver

According to France Compétences, “the drivers of retraining generally combine several personal and professional factors. However, job dissatisfaction almost always remains present”. Finally, “the intensity of the situations of change and learning previously experienced by the individual is not neutral in the apprehension of risk and confidence in his power to act”.

Career change is sometimes also dictated by the opportunity generated by the emergence of new professions. In its annual barometer on professional development, published in the fall, Avenir Actifs in Occitanie, the public service operator Mon conseil en évolution professionnelle (Mon CEP), confirms this. “Two major factors of transformation of work are emerging for the future, it is observed: artificial intelligence (AI) and the ecological transition”.

These new professions that appeal

These distinct emerging trends “redefine employees' expectations”. Thus, nearly 28% of employees in Occitanie “identify AI as the factor most likely to disrupt their profession”. A figure up 5 points compared to July 2023. Concerning the ecological transition, it questions 14% of them, who consider that it “will have a profound impact on their profession in the coming years”. It is clear that these two key factors “influence the career aspirations” of the region's workers.

“It is not always easy to take the plunge”

However, it is not always so easy to cross the Rubicon. “Changing careers is the goal of half of the people we welcome, explains Marie Delon. But not all of them necessarily take action. It's not always easy to take the plunge”.

And for good reason: “the current context is not favorable, the economy is not doing well”. Since the dissolution, “people often prefer to postpone the project”. In the first half of 2024, Marie Delon's services had welcomed 20% more people in the region. In the second half of the same year, “there was almost no increase”.

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