In France, the publicly-owned EdF and GdF have set themselves explicit recruitment targets, with the explicit goal of increasing recruitment of young workers and expanding the resources available for service provision.

In January 1997 they published an 8-point plan to increase the number of employees, by recruiting more young workers. It is based on both expanding the services to customers, and introducing new forms of work-sharing. If implemented in full, the employers claim it would enable them to recruit 15,000 workers in 3 years. They guarantee that the number recruited will be at least 11,000 - double the 5,500 that they would otherwise expect to recruit.

The plan includes:

• Reduction of hours for shiftworkers, with no loss of pay.
• The opportunity for full-time workers on 38 hours to choose to move to 32 hours, while being paid for 35 hours, for a 3 year period.
• Voluntary early retirement in declining areas, to be replaced by recruitment of young workers in growth sectors.
• 75% of recruits will be put on a 32 hour week, for a three year period, with the option of going full-time after that.

The plan is being negotiated with the trade unions. At the end of January, some were in favour of signing, some still had reservations. These reservations concerned the extent to which EDF would actually be employing a significant number of extra workers, rather than just replacing older retirees with younger workers.