The world of learning is subject to a cure of budgetary sobriety. The credits allocated to training organizations will be reduced in two stages, by 5% from 1er September, then by an amount which should be equivalent from 1er April 2023. This is the consequence of the deliberation adopted, Thursday, June 30, by the board of directors of France competences, the regulatory and financing body for the sector. Between 750 and 800 million euros in savings are expected from these arbitrations, which were taken in close consultation with the State – at its very request, according to several protagonists. Part of the employers are dissatisfied, as are the managers of structures welcoming apprentices: they fear that this double stroke of the plane will break the favorable dynamics from which the system has benefited for several years.
While controversial, this decision comes as no surprise. It is the result of a process initiated in December 2021 which consisted of reviewing each financing – or “level of support” – allocated to apprenticeship contracts. Benedictine work carried out on just over 42,000 values.
One of the aims of the operation is to contribute to the bailout of France competences, whose budget is structurally in deficit, by 4.6 billion euros in 2020 and 3.2 billion in 2021… This year, the hole could approach 6 billion. A situation synonymous with“financial impasse” for the Court of Auditors, which on June 23 submitted a very documented report on the subject.
Exceptional bonuses for bosses
The problem is linked to the profound transformations that learning has undergone during Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term. The law of September 2018 “for the freedom to choose one’s professional future” sought to promote this way of acquiring qualifications by facilitating the opening of apprenticeship training centers (CFA). The text also overturned the methods of financing: from now on, for each young signatory of a contract, a sum is allocated according to the “level of support” fixed by the professional branches or, failing that, by the State ( on a proposal from France competences). At the same time, exceptional bonuses were introduced in 2020 for the benefit of employers who hire this type of workforce.
All these measures are behind the impressive growth in apprenticeships: in 2021, some 730,000 contracts were concluded, compared to 290,000 five years earlier. The other side of the coin: France competences does not have enough money to pay the bill. Hence the recurring deficits, which the operator is coping with expedients (bank loans, state subsidies).
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