The defence industry has an important role to play in reaching out to those who represent the sustainability of our know-how. Preserving our skills to fulfil our missions at the service of customers is essential. In these times of crisis, the defense industry has an important role to play in fostering the continuity and endurance of this know-how. Starting today, it is critical that we prepare for tomorrow and invest in the skills and talent of our next generation.
Military shipbuilding is an enduring industry; the ships we build today will be in service for decades to come. Acquiring the specific skills to produce and maintain these complex products requires a sustained period of acquisition.
This timeframe, coupled with the scale of our projects, require us to plan ahead in the medium-to-long term, if we are to maintain our skill capability. Critical to this is to better anticipate our future needs.
Our future is now, and we must prepare for it. As a major player in Naval defence, we must strive to prepare the skills of the future. Our commitment to the next generation is not only about recruiting talent, it is above all about promoting their inclusion in the company and integrating them into the group's important decisions.
We have recruited more than 4,500 new employees over the last three years and we will continue to recruit, particularly in production and new high-tech professions.
While it is essential that we nourish ourselves with the dynamism and ideas of these young generations and everything they have to offer, it is also important to make work-study programs a pathway for the development of diversity in the company. We still need to make further progress in recruiting work-study students with disabilities, and working to fully integrate them into our company. We must also make progress in gender diversity and the recruitment of female talent on work-study programs, because careers in the naval defence are open to everyone, men and women, in engineering and design as well as in production!
We must prepare for our future today. Companies today have a social responsibility with regard to younger people joining the job market. We must consider young workers and work-study students as essential, dynamic drivers, adapted to the needs of our company. Let’s engage in order to meet the challenges of the defence industry together .
Pierre Éric Pommellet, Naval Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer