“We don’t come here to weld gutters! » Thomas Gouez has a sense of formula. With his head shaved and beard trimmed, behind his welding helmet, the professor explains all the technical aspects of so-called “penetrative” welding. Blowtorch in hand in front of a 1.5 millimeter thick stainless steel plate, this forty-year-old is one of the trainers at Hefaïs, the welding training school in Cherbourg (La Mancha). Hefaïs as… Hephaestus, the Greek god of the forge.
This structure, launched in 2022, reached its final installations in September. Almost 3,000 new square meters, located on the heights of Cherbourg. With a mission to fulfill: to train the “future welding champions”explains its director, Corentin Lelièvre.
Responding to the association statute, Hefaïs was born on the initiative of four nuclear and naval industrial giants of the English Channel: EDF, which manages the Flamanville power plant, Orano (formerly Areva) and its spent fuel reprocessing plant in The Hague. the submarine builder Naval Group and the military ship manufacturer CMN, in Cherbourg. These large groups are facing a labor shortage, particularly of welders, a key profession in their sectors. “For years, it has been increasingly difficult to find welders and we have also noticed a decrease in the level of technical skills, two problems that we wanted to solve by creating Hefaïs”explains Stéphane Valor, human resources director at Orano in The Hague.
In 2023, some 7,000 welding positions would be filled in France, according to figures from France Travail. The work is difficult but sought after. A welder earns on average between 1,600 and 2,000 euros gross per month. Salary that increases with seniority and risk premiums and varies depending on the sector. In Cotentin alone, the nuclear and naval industry will need to employ 2,500 welders in the next ten years, according to the forecasts of the French Nuclear Energy Industrialists Group. The order books are full, which demonstrates the industrial dynamism of this territory.
“The conditions of reality”
The school is aimed at two types of audiences: job seekers and workers in the process of retraining, and already employed welders who come to improve their skills. At the end of October he received a class of nine students, six men and three women, aged between 21 and 39 years. From September to December, they will undergo qualified training before joining Orano Temis, an Orano subsidiary specialized in the manufacturing of nuclear or defense equipment. In January 2025 they will join the production line of densified baskets intended to house nuclear waste stored in La Hague.
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