Recruitment in the Hotel and Catering Sector: What Kind of Selectivity in a Labour Market Where There Are Shortages?[Recruter dans l’hôtellerie-restauration : quelle sélectivité sur un marché du travail en tension ?]

Can a sector with shortages be selective? Far from just being a matter of a labour deficit, recruitment difficulties can also be a result of strategies used for mobilising employees. This is the hypothesis explored in this article, on the basis of a survey carried out in the hotel and catering sector. In order to do so, we go back to the sources of recruitment difficulties, in order to pinpoint the importance of turnover and the paradox of the coexistence of what is said about shortages alongside strong demand for employment. We show that the issue of stabilising a hard core of "employees on whom one can count" leads to employers recruiting by avoiding employment agencies ? in different ways, depending on whether they are independent companies or chains. We finish by examining assessment criteria, which are good indicators of "domestic conventions" in operation, given the issue of candidates' availability in terms of time.