French Defence Group Thales To Hire 12,000 Staff Due To Orders Boom

In an interview with the French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, Thales CEO Patrice Caine said that the company plans to hire 12,000 new workers this year because demand for all of its products is high.

He said that over the past eight years, Thales, which has a total of 80,000 employees, 40,000 of whom work in France, had hired between 5,000 and 8,000 new employees per year, and that it had already hired 11,500 new employees the year before.

Caine said that the company was doing well in all of its fields, including defence and security, aeronautics and space, identity and digital security.

“The company is a reflection of its markets,” he said. “All of our markets are growing quickly, and needs are growing in all of our fields of work.”

When Caine met with Ukraine’s defence minister recently, he said that France would send Ukraine its Ground Master 200 radar air defence system in May.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, shares of Thales, Europe’s largest arms electronics provider, have risen nearly 60% to new all-time highs, outperforming the Refinitiv Europe Aerospace & Defense index.

President Emmanuel Macron said in January that French military spending would go up by more than a third over the next few years. The military budget for 2024–2030 is expected to reach 413 billion euros ($447 billion), up from 295 billion euros for 2019–2025, as the army adjusts to a new security situation after Russia invaded Ukraine.