Education, Training and Employment 2025 Edition
With Education, Training and Employment, INSEE presents the main analyses of young people leaving the initial education system, their professional integration and lifelong training.
Since 2018, apprenticeships have been massively expanded in tertiary education and the service sector
Emeline Jounin (Dares), Guirane Ndao (Sies), Willy Thao Khamsing (Sies), Aurore Domps (Depp)
Following the 2018 law “for the freedom to choose one’s professional future” (named loi « pour la liberté de choisir son avenir professionnel » in French) which reformed apprenticeship, and the introduction in 2020 of an exceptional financial support for apprentice employers in the context of the Covid outbreak, the number of apprentices in France more than doubled in five years, reaching 1,021,500 apprentices in December 2023.
The increase in the number of apprentices concerned all levels of qualification, but was particularly marked in tertiary education. Apprentices in tertiary education became the majority: 62% of apprentices in 2023, compared with 39% in 2017. In line with this rise in tertiary education, apprenticeship courses weremore often in the service sector than in the manufacturing sector.
At the same time, the proportion of female apprentices increased but was still in the minority. The termination rate of apprentices’ contracts during the nine first months of the contract increased slightly between 2017 and 2022 (+2 points, to an average of 21%).
In secondary vocational education, apprentices came more often than vocational high school students from a privileged background. In University Technical Institutes (shortens to IUTs in French) and vocational bachelor’s degrees, the social background of apprentices was similar to that of school students. In masters, engineering or business schools, it was less advantaged than their academic counterparts.
After their training, apprentices found a job more easily than their academic counterparts, particularly in secondary vocational education. Some of them stayed in the company where they did their apprenticeship. More generally, the profile of the apprentice population differed from that of school-based vocational students, in terms of social origin and educational background. Apprentices could also differ from other pupils or students in other characteristics, which are more difficult to measure, such as motivation, the network of people around them or knowledge of the social codes of the working world.