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IN BRIEF
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In the Ain department, the tourism and leisure sector remains one of the main providers of seasonal jobs. As summer approaches, many positions remain vacant, whether in large tourist structures like leisure centers, animal parks, or hotels and restaurants. Recruitment challenges are significant and concerns various trades: waiters, maintenance staff, recreational personnel, lifeguards, or maintenance technicians. Despite a recruitment campaign launched at the beginning of the year, employers are still struggling to find enough candidates to meet the strong summer demand.
Ongoing needs in animal parks and leisure sites
The Bird Park in Villars-les-Dombes, a true tourist reference in the department, illustrates these difficulties well. Every year, this establishment welcomes an increasing number of visitors, easily exceeding the 300,000 entries expected in 2025. To cope with this influx, the park is multiplying seasonal recruitments from May to October, peaking at about a hundred seasonal workers in the summer, while its permanent staff consists of around 60 people. There are needs both for short-term jobs and longer contracts, particularly for the preparation and hosting of major events such as summer musical evenings.
In these establishments, the most pressing shortfall is on the side of catering. Many waiter and waitress positions in the park’s restaurants and snack bars are still to be filled. This year, the absence of job dating has not facilitated the connection between employers and candidates. While the reception and cleaning teams are generally well-staffed, the catering sector remains strained, facing the challenge of quickly recruiting operational staff, especially during peak attendance times.
The leisure base and aquatic centers in active search
The La Plaine Tonique Leisure Base in Malafretaz is equally affected by the labor shortage. As early as the end of January, Grand Bourg Agglomeration launched its recruitment campaign to cover summer needs, but many offers remain unanswered. Out of the 120 seasonal jobs needed for managing the leisure base, camping, and the Carré d’Eau aquatic center in Bourg-en-Bresse, several positions remain unfilled.
The vacant positions primarily concern maintenance workers, cleaning staff, as well as animation and aquatic supervision. The contracts offered, mostly for two months, aim to ensure stability of teams throughout the season and to avoid having to retrain new candidates multiple times each summer. The recruitment service observes that many students are only available in July, reserving August for their vacations, which further complicates coverage for the entire summer period.
The hotel and restaurant industry under pressure all year round
The hotel and restaurant sector is no exception. Vivien Campion, director of the Union of Professions and Industries of Hospitality in Ain, emphasizes that the pressure on employment is no longer limited to summer peaks, but is now felt throughout the year, particularly regarding permanent positions. This pressure is exacerbated during busy periods, especially around leisure bases, where it is imperative to find immediately operational staff to meet the demands of clients on holiday, who are attached to fixed meal times.
To attract more candidates, employers are betting on salary increases and seeking to improve team organization, taking into account the constraints and aspirations of seasonal workers as much as possible. This adaptation sometimes involves a reflection on job arrangements or the pursuit of innovative solutions, such as providing housing for staff within or near tourist establishments, knowing that other large-scale projects in the region, such as new industrial sites, are likely to make housing even more difficult in the future.
Many positions to fill and how to apply
In the Ain department, it is not too late to apply for a seasonal job in the tourism and leisure sector. Several structures continue to publish their offers, especially through institutional websites and specialized networks. Interested candidates can check the available offers on the Grand Bourg Agglomeration website or submit their application online at grandbourg.fr. For the Bird Park, applicants can find information directly on the official Facebook page or on parcdesoiseaux.com. Direct contacts are also provided ([email protected]) to facilitate procedures.
Seasonal job offers can also be found on national platforms like France Travail, through local missions, or on the Youth Information network (jeunes01.infos-jeunes.fr). To learn more about the challenges faced by seasonal workers during the summer, it is interesting to consult additional resources, such as this article dedicated to the challenges of temporary workers.
To broaden your professional horizons or discover other summer opportunities related to the sector, it may also be relevant to consider European air links for 2025, stay durations in national parks, or children’s vacations in Châteauneuf-Thymerais or village life in the Basque Country (spicy Basque village).
