A new record has just fallen. In 2021, the number of apprenticeship contracts reached 718,000 (including 698,000 in the private sector), an increase of nearly 37% in one year, according to the almost final statistics released on Wednesday February 2 by the Ministry of Labour. The progression is a little slower than that measured between 2019 and 2020, but it allows the system to rise to an unequaled threshold, by relegating to oblivion the result of the previous exercise which nevertheless corresponded to a peak. Elisabeth Borne, the Minister of Labour, was delighted with this “exceptional dynamics”during a debate in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
The increase concerns all types of diploma, but it is stronger than in 2020, with regard to young people preparing for the baccalaureate or the CAP by being apprentices. As for higher education students who continue their education under this status, their numbers are increasing at a slower pace than before, while remaining in the majority: they represent 62% of contracts concluded last year. A percentage that debunks old stereotypes about learning, long equated with a path to manual trades for students in difficulty.
This method of training is developing in all types of companies, but it is companies with less than 50 employees that use it the most. The service sector is particularly fond of this type of labor, since it won seven out of ten contracts in 2021 (compared to 15% for industry and 11% in construction). These are all indicators that the power in place welcomes, because the course has powerful effects in terms of professional integration: 65% of apprentices have a job ” twelve months after graduationaccording to a study by the services of the Ministry of Labor.
“The image of learning has evolved”
The upward trend, which began timidly at the end of the previous legislature, has accelerated since the start of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term. Several factors play into the success of this system in ” alternation “, that is to say based on round trips between immersions in business and theoretical courses. The “professional future” law of September 2018 simplified the rules and liberalized the offer: to create an apprentice training center (CFA), there is no longer any need to obtain the green light from the regional council. The financing methods have also been completely revised: they are based on the notion of “contract cost”which is a kind of pricing whose level of coverage is set by the social partners sitting in the professional branches.
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