The numbers of unemployed for the month of August are on the rise. A job seeker on the three exchange business to exit unemployment. A path often fraught with pitfalls. In the Yvelines, actors of the insertion organize.

For years, Laila has been a hairdresser. A job that she has always loved, since childhood and that she has worked in Algeria before arriving in France in 2007. After having worked in a few salons, she creates hers in 2015. But the case turns out badly. Six months after its opening, its business is placed in liquidation. A grueling experience. This mother of two children, divorced, fails to find employment sustainable in the salon. He proposes that missions acting. She is thinking about being a hairdresser at home, but it is impossible without a CAPE, a degree that she did not.

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When she is offered a position of”agent territorial communities” in the single insertion contract by the social services of Poissy (Yvelines), she immediately accepts. At the end of the pre-service training, which starts in October next, at 41 years of age, she will be able to work in the canteen of a college in preparing entries and ensuring the self-service, for a maximum of one year. A big turn. “This is not a chef, of course!”, joked, but she ensures there is something for.

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A “reorientation” smooth

The example of Leïla is far from being an isolated case. According to a study by the Pôle emploi published in 2014, an applicant for employment on the three exchange business to exit unemployment. And in one case on two, the conversion is the only way to return to work. At the risk therefore of not having really chosen…

A problem that is familiar with Philippe Pascal, director of the agency “Activity'”, a structure created by the department of the Yvelines. Its mission: to support 3000 beneficiaries of RSA into employment by 2017. And he makes it a point of honour to ensure a “shift” smoothly. “In these conversions, there is often a notion of constraints. However, if you are forced, we are going to failures. If it just says to people, “you are going to work there”, they are disengaging themselves.”

The agency is trying to offer “the most diverse choice possible” in terms of career paths. It offers between 300 and 400 contracts single insertion: jobs such as the one won by Leïla in schools or administrations, or in “brigades vertes”.

But the road to conversion is long. And the pitfalls varied: problems of housing, training, transport… To overcome them, the social workers in the Yvelines and Pôle emploi work in pairs with the job seekers and the beneficiaries of the RSA for one year. This is to help them define a professional project, but also to assist them on a daily basis in their efforts in providing aid for transport, housing, driving licences…

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The training also plays an important role. “Sometimes, the person is ready to change direction and to do this there must follow a curriculum. It is then necessary to obtain funding, which is not always easy. But by this time, the plan 500 000 training unlocks more folders,” admits Olga Ernoux, consultant integration at Poissy.

Waive his or her professional identity past

a Successful orientation requires also to properly assess. This is not always easy. “Some people want to become a health care aide, but they only have the level to become the auxiliary of life” shows Mylène Lebreton, a social worker at the space of social action of Poissy. If some unemployed people are open, pressed by the urgency of finding a job, other can be set, by apprehension, or fear of being downgraded.

It is necessary to find a compromise, “work on oneself”, insists Mylène Lebreton. “Some don’t want to change lanes, because they have exercised for a long time in a profession, have been educated and have experience. But the hole on the CV grows. Our role is to alert them so that they do not put more in difficulty than they are already. It can take years. People who had a good situation in the past, we show that their profession is part of their identity.”

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After two years of unemployment, Mohamed has accepted a position of service agent of the college. There, he worked 30 hours a week for about 860 euro per month. “It was a big change, but it is well,” he points out. A women’s environment, with children, away from the atmosphere at the airport of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle, where he carried out missions of operator acting for air cargo. A position in which it is somewhat nostalgic… “I have worked with Air France!” And regret his badge at the airport, which allowed him to circulate in the airport and be considered a “human right”. If his current job allows him to get back in the saddle, at age 52, it does not prohibit, in the future, to return to his old job. “A year from now, I’ll see what I want to do. I’ll try to get mbn Caces (Certificate of aptitude in safe driving).” A sesame essential for working in logistics.