The projections are dramatic, by 2015 between 170,000 and 310,000 people will migrate to Languedoc-Roussillon looking for a warmer climate and a better quality of life. The question is will they find it?
Recently Air Litoral and Dell in the Herault, Saligne and Formica in the Aude, and Perrier and Well in the Gard have all laid off staff or announced they will in the near future. Irrifrance and Compangnie du Bas-Rhone Languedoc are in grave financial difficulties as are Tuvodoc in the high Herault and Cogema in the Lodeve. In fact there are now only 8 private companies with more than 500 employees in the whole region. While Languedoc has the best start-up rate of new businesses in the country we are at the bottom of the table for their survival, only 41% last more than 5 years. 70% of all employed people in the region work for companies with less than 10 employees and we have the highest level of complaints by employees to the Prud Hommes for violation of workers rights as these small enterprises cut corners to survive.
On the agricultural side the large scale reduction in the wine industry has decimated the agrarian work force.
As a result 10% of the poplulation now live on less than 2,200 francs per month. 71,177 recieve the RMI, basic subsistance benefit, with a further 35,000 getting some sort of disability benefit and 11,800 getting single parent support. 11% of the poplulation are too poor to pay for medical cover have to be covered by the CMU(Couverture Maladie Universelle). In general 43.4% of the population recieve some form of state assistance against a national average of 38%.