The Comité Colbert is sounding the alarm: certain typically French skills are in danger of disappearing in the next 10 years! The luxury industry has 80 such sectors and each year 10,000 jobs are left vacant for lack of candidates. Jewelry is very much concerned, which led Van Cleef & Arpels to organize “De Mains en Mains” in Lyon last December – a series of days in which to discover its trades: setters, polishers, jewelers, etc. Bénédicte Epinay, General Delegate/CEO of the Comité Colbert, offers several explanations: a generation born in the 1960s that will soon be retiring, people over 50 years of age who represent 36% of the workforce and people under 25 years of age who represent only 0.4%! Épinay also suggests two other reasons: the sector is in a blind spot torn between 3 ministries (Culture, Education and Industry), vocational training courses are not valued and their syllabi are out of date. To ensure the future of its know-how, the Colbert Comité is tackling the problem head on and is to convene a General Assembly of Artistic Métiers next fall.
