This increase had already been more than 42% in 2020 compared to the previous year.
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A new record. Some 650,000 apprenticeship contracts were registered by the Ministry of Labor in mid-December for the year 2021, the Ministry of Labor announced on Thursday (December 16th). This represents an increase of 25% compared to the already record number of 2020. The final figure, which will be known in January, will be even higher because contracts concluded in December will continue to be transmitted at the beginning of next year, specifies the ministry.
This increase had already been more than 42% in 2020, with a final 525,600 contracts identified for the private and public sectors. This can be explained in particular by the 2018 reform, which liberalized apprenticeship both on entry conditions and on the training offer, then boosted by the exceptional aid decided during the crisis and extended until the 30th. June 2022. Namely: a bonus – 5,000 euros for a minor, 8,000 for an adult – which makes the cost of the first year almost zero for the employer.
If the progression in 2021 concerns all levels of diploma, it is stronger in higher education, and particularly for levels above bac + 3 (Master). This development in higher education aroused reservations from the Court of Auditors in a note published on Tuesday. “The share of bac + 2 and above increased from 35% in 2016 to 56% in 2020. Most of the new places created have benefited students able to follow a long course and have little benefited vulnerable groups.“, notes the Court, for whom this choice does not improve “that at the margin the integration into the labor market of the most qualified young people, moreover already good”.
On the contrary, we defend in the ministry, “this corresponds to a real professionalization of higher education“. Learning develops “strongly in the tertiary sector (accounting, management, human resources, communication …), a sector where it is important for training to be directly linked to the business world”, we emphasize. “In addition, it improves the image of learning that it is open to all levels of diplomas”, adds the ministry.