The case for recruiting during economic and health uncertainty

It has been more than a year since COVID hit us. The beginning of 2020 was marked by an initial slowdown with an almost complete shutdown of several sectors. This first wave caused a major economic slowdown and, in turn, put a brake on recruitment. While most lockdown measures were eased in the summer, a second wave prevented the long-awaited recovery before fall. Despite this, some resilient companies continued to move forward at all costs and kept their activities going, and in some cases, kept recruiting.

The health crisis has even been a source of opportunity for some sectors. One thinks of the health and social services sectors, of course, but also of certain branches of pharmacy, biotech and medtech, sectors linked to the food chain (food trade, food industry and agriculture) or the information and communication sciences sectors.

Indeed, the rapid rise in remote work, education and civic life have accelerated already existing trends. These include remote learning, video games, telephony, cyber security, e-health, collaborative work software and other sharing platforms, and more generally the digitization of processes. Generally, management and executive functions are not experiencing the same tightening, given their usefulness in managing the impacts of the crisis while paving the way for a brighter future.

Lessons learned from 2008

Following the economic crisis of 2008, the OSEO report showed us that the companies that had bee