Young people from housing estates, people living on benefits or juvenile delinquents: SNCF has work and a future for all of them.
Recruitment from working-class neighbourhoods
Equal skills, equal opportunities: this is the touchstone of
the SNCF's recruitment policy, which seeks out applicants from the so-called Sensitive Urban Areas. These are the Equality and Skills Forums. In 2006, the SNCF organised 12 such forums in Trappes (Yvelines), Marseille, Nancy, Lille and Strasbourg. Nearly 4,000 potential applicants discovered the SNCF in a new light. They had been preselected by the National Employment Agency centres, local community groups and associations promoting social integration. The basic message was that the SNCF has jobs you might be interested in. And this proved to be true. Of the 4000 potential applicants, 3400 applied and 2400 got an interview. About 650 were recruited, using the same criteria for everyone. In 2007, 12 new forums are scheduled to take place in working-class neighbourhoods.
Integration projects
In 2005, the SNCF made an agreement with the Ministry of Employment to recruit 700 people living on benefits. Since 2006, 15 regions served by the SNCF have started 46 social integration projects from Paris to Bordeaux as well as in Lyon and the Nord-Pas de Calais region, where 64 people have refurbished 133 stations and TER (regional train) stops, in partnership with the 'Chantiers école' network of associations. In total, 420 people benefited from a 2-year part-time 'contract for the future' learned a skill and seized a new socioprofessional opportunity.
Community service
In February 2007, the SNCF made an agreement with the Department of Justice to accept young offenders and people sentenced to community service.
The goal was to play a role in preventative action and combating reoffending.
These young people are involved, for example, in cleaning graffiti, supervised by volunteer railway workers. It's a chance for them to find out about work on the railways alongside those who are proud to be there.
