Move to South of France

[LaurenceC]

We are thinking of leaving this sinking ship"Blighty" in the next 12 months and going to the South of France. Language is not an issue we are learning it and definitely want to get onside with the locals
. My wife has travel and estate agency experience and currently works in care work, I have over 25 years retail experience from fridges to farm shop what would be our chances of finding work?.
Thanks

[Bevdeforges]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

Your chances of finding work will vary directly with your fluency in the language. The better you speak French, the better chance you'll have. Estate agents work quite a bit differently here than in the UK, due to the rather different laws regarding property transactions, so that might be a stretch (at least at first).

We seem to have lots of folks here lately who do "care work." I suppose it depends on exactly what you mean here. France has a number of programs in place whereby various forms of "care work" (as I understand the term) can be subsidized by the state - either through the health insurance scheme or via tax breaks. While it might be possible to find relevant jobs within the anglophone expat community in the south of France, most people are going to want care workers who qualify for the various state subsidy programs, which means either you will need to qualify under French law in the appropriate profession or will need to set up a French company to assure that VAT matters are properly handled. (In other words, not impossible, but start looking into the details as soon as you can.)

For finding a retail job, it will be your French ability more than anything else. It might not be a bad idea to make a couple exploratory trips to France to try to scout out the job market for yourself.

An excellent source for general information on the "administrative" side of life in France is the Service Public website here: SERVICE PUBLIC - Particuliers especially the sections on "Etrangers in France", "Emploi, travail", and "santé".
Cheers,
Bev

[giantpanda]

Originally Posted by LaurenceC

We are thinking of leaving this sinking ship"Blighty" in the next 12 months and going to the South of France. Language is not an issue we are learning it and definitely want to get onside with the locals
. My wife has travel and estate agency experience and currently works in care work, I have over 25 years retail experience from fridges to farm shop what would be our chances of finding work?.Thanks

Hi!

The largest chances as probably for your wife, since Immobiliers will certainly are looking for competent people speaking English, although the flow of EXpats wanting to come on prepension in France has probably been dramatically braked by last year's Health Insurance rulings.

Notwithstanding, at a first stage, it will be difficult to find a permant jobs - certainly one may try to employ you on a commission basis.
Unfortunately that solution would mean you have to register as " travailleur indépendant " and you get hit by the URSSAF contributions, which are defintely not proprotional to your turnover ( for low levels ).

So before accepting such a proposition,you would need to check the details here.

Yours,

giantpanda