1. Defining ‘managers’ The terms “manager” and “professional” have no equivalent in French The name “professional” does not exit The translation of ‘manager’ by “management executive” and the translation of ‘professional’ by “intellectual or scientific occupation” is correct However the opposition between manager and professional is not essential within the PCS classification

2. Defining ‘managers’ The PCS classification primarily classifies according to the status (employer, self-employed, unpaid or paid family worker, employee) And then according to the hierarchical position of the occupation for the wage-earners (according to collective agreements) And finally according to a functional logic and a public / private sector logic

3. How are supervisors treated in the PCS ? In France, there is no such notion as “supervisor”. There are two kinds of wage-earners which might be included as supervisors

4. How supervisors are treated ? the chefs d’équipe (“heads of teams”) who are classified as production workers in the collective agreements. These people mainly act as blue-collar workers, as well as supervising less skilled workers.

5. How supervisors are treated ? the contremaîtres (“foremen”) and the agents de maîtrise (“supervising management”) who are both classified as agents de maîtrise in the collective agreements (intermediate level). The main function of that staff is to supervise other workers and at times other agents de maîtrise. Their job mainly consist in planning and organizing tasks, as opposed to production tasks.

6. How are supervisors treated in the PCS ? Both “heads of team” and foremen have in common the fact that they have “supervising” responsibilities, yet at a hierarchical level too low for them to be considered as “managers” (higher level strategic responsibility).

7. How are supervisors treated in the PCS ? It is deemed important to distinguish foremen and supervisory management occupations from the workers they supervise including heads of teams This distinction is based on the job content in terms of time devoted to supervising versus production tasks. This is proxied by the classifications in collective agreements corresponding to different skill levels.

8. How are supervisors treated in the PCS ? Thus, supervisory management and foremen differ both from workers and from executives This classifying logic is of course rather different from that of ISCO-88

9. How are supervisors treated in the PCS ? As a conclusion, foremen and heads of teams cannot be merged in a unique category on the ground that they have supervising responsabilities ; Indeed, they differ substantially in terms of education and training, as reflected by the collective agreements.

10. How are nurses treated in the PCS ? Among nurses we make the following distinction : - supervising nurses - specialised nurses - midwives - non-specialised nurses

11. How are nurses treated in the PCS ? All these categories are classified at the intermediate level of the PCS ie they are not considered as professionals, but as associate professionals, even the most specialized

12. How are nurses treated in the PCS ? Note that other health occupations, such as hospital auxiliary nurses or persons doing home visits, are not classified at the intermediate level but in the corresponding personal care categories of ISCO

13. How are teachers treated in the PCS ? During the last revision of the PCS classification (in 2003), the fact that the instituteurs (primary school teachers) have been replaced by the professeurs des écoles of a higher academic and training level has not reached to a change in their classification.

14. How are teachers treated in the PCS ? We keep distinguishing the professeurs teaching at the university and secondary level (considered as “cadres” ie professionals or upper intellectual occupations), from the “professeurs des écoles and instituteurs” teaching at primary schools, and considered as intermediate intellectual occupations ie associate professionals. The reason for this is to preserve the continuity of time series at the 1 digit level of PCS ; however, the name of the second group has been altered to indicate that the primary school teachers are classified into it regardless of their qualification.

15. How are executives treated in the PCS ? Within the group of “cadres”, the PCS distinguishes between engineers on the one hand, administrative and commercial executives on the other hand. The former include production engineers as well as R&D engineers and more transversal technical occupations. The latter includes administrative occupations (finance, human resources, management …). The distinction between the previous groups is based on the reported occupation as well as the reported function (sales, production, R&D …).

16. How are executives treated in the PCS ? The owners of shops and small businesses are not classified among the executives. Because in the PCS, the classifying is determined by the status as a wage-earner or as an indépendant “self-employed”.

17. Corporate managers and general managers It is not deemed possible to identify senior managing executives by the size of the firm (an executive in a small firm enjoys a higher position than their counterpart in a larger firm all other things being equal). We distinguish the wage-earning ones from the self-employed ones.

18. Corporate managers and general managers The category of self-employed includes the managers who are salaried by their own company. In this category, we make a distinction between “craftsmen” and “tradesmen” on the one hand, and “general managers” on the other hand, according to a criterion of size of the company (10 employees).

19. Corporate managers and general managers Within the category of the wage-earners ones, we make distinctions between the executives according to their reported hierarchical position or by their reported occupation : directors or their close associates are distinguished from other executives This distinction has nothing to do with the size of firm

20. Definition of technicians It seems less problematic than the definition of ‘managers’ and ‘professionals’ The French term technicien being quite similar to the English one.

21. Definition of technicians But the categories of ‘technicians’ (as well as cadres) are defined by the collective agreements concluded between trade unions and employers federations Technicians have an intermediate technical and scientific training clearly below the level of engineers or other professionals