France Travail, France’s public employment agency, is stepping up hands-on recruiting efforts in the Oise department north of Paris—bringing employers and job seekers together directly instead of waiting for applicants to walk into an office.
In the southern part of Oise, the agency is rolling out multiple on-the-ground programs aimed at reconnecting unemployed residents with hiring companies, from the industrial hub around Beauvais to other hard-to-fill occupations.
150 industrial job openings gathered into one Beauvais-area event
Near Beauvais, local industry leaders have rallied around a single, concrete initiative: an event pooling 150 job openings in one place. The goal is explicit—freshen up the image of factory work for job seekers and students alike.
“Industry is the sector that innovates the most,” organizers’ messaging says, summing up the pitch used for the occasion.
The effort comes as the local labor market has weakened again at the regional level in early 2026, according to joint data from Insee (France’s national statistics agency), Dreets (the regional labor and economy administration), and Urssaf (the payroll-tax collection network).
France Travail’s “Besoins en main-d’œuvre” survey, presented in late April, also points to persistent hiring bottlenecks. Among the hardest roles to fill this year: masons, nurses, hairdressers, and market gardeners.
A “bus for jobs” reaches residents farthest from employment
To reach people who are most disconnected from work, France Travail is also relying on a mobile program deployed across Oise. Results cited by Le Parisien show that among 7,000 people who were able to meet with a job-placement counselor, half found a job.
That return-to-work rate—one in two after an interview—highlights the impact of an itinerant format compared with traditional appointments at an agency office. The model is built on physical proximity: the bus travels to rural and outer-suburban towns with limited service, where long-term unemployment is often concentrated.
An agency under pressure as the regional job market softens
France Travail, created in December 2008 and headquartered in Paris, is running these initiatives against a tense national backdrop. The deterioration of the labor market in Hauts-de-France around the start of 2026 is weighing on the agency’s targets, pushing it to innovate to maintain results in the least dynamic parts of Oise.
The push to multiply ways into work—whether through industry-focused hiring days or traveling buses—reflects a basic reality on the ground: job openings exist, but they don’t always reach the people who need them.
