The National Institute for the Development of Continuing Vocational Training (INFPC) has announced a new publication analysing the training activity of companies benefiting from state financial aid in the area of continuing vocational training.
The data in the study come from the requests for co-financing of in-company training submitted for the 2021 financial year.
In 2021, companies that requested state aid in this area invested 1.3% of their payroll in training. On average, employees attended 4.9 training courses lasting 3.0 hours. The state's financial aid amounted to €143 per employee. In its publication "Pratiques de formation - Octobre 2024", the Training Observatory has analysed the training activity of companies based on data from requests for public co-financing for training, submitted by companies in 2022, for the 2021 financial year.
In 2021, Luxembourg, like other countries, continued to face the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies were relying more on state aid to finance employee training than in 2020. In total, 2,248 companies benefited from state financial aid for training, i.e. 86 more applications than in 2020. In total, 30.8% of Luxembourg companies with ten or more employees were represented and, potentially, 56.4% of all employees in the private sector.
The declared financial effort of co-financed companies was back on the path to growth (+0.2 percentage points compared to 2020). All categories combined, employees could expect to follow more training courses than in 2020 (4.1 training courses), during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and than in 2019 (4.7 training courses), before the pandemic. This improvement was accompanied by "significantly increased" state support for in-company training.
On average, employees participated in more training courses (+0.8 participations, compared to 2020) of shorter duration (-0.2 hours, compared to 2020) - a downward trend observed for more than ten years.
This was true for very large companies (1,000 employees or more), where employees participated in more training courses but for shorter durations (on average, 6.5 participations of a duration of 2.5 hours). The smaller the company, the longer the training courses: these lasted at most 6.5 hours, on average, in structures with ten to nineteen employees, or 4.0 hours more than in those with 1,000+ employees. In very small companies (less than ten employees), employees could expect to follow 5.1 training courses, lasting 6.0 hours, or 30.6 hours of training.
Moreover, as in 2020, companies were investing the most in 2021 in the "Technical/Business" field (40%). This was followed by the "Management/HRM" field (17%). The "Technical/Business" field also accounted for 41% of all training hours and 35% of all participations. After the "Technical/Business" field, training participation was highest in the "Finance, accounting and law" (20%) and "Quality, ISO and safety" (19%) fields.
The report also showed certain disparities. On average, executives participated in 8.5 training courses, managers in 6.7 training courses, qualified employees in 5.0 training courses and unqualified employees in 1.8 training courses.
More than three-quarters of the training courses followed by managers and executives belonged to the fields of "Technical/Professional", "Management/HRM" and "Finance, accounting and law". The "Technical/Professional" field accounted for 35.8% of the training courses in which qualified employees participated, followed by "Quality, ISO and safety" (21.1%) and "Finance, accounting and law" (19.9%). The training courses followed by unqualified employees were mainly divided between the fields of "Technical/Professional" (43.7%) and "Quality, ISO and safety" (37.2%).
In addition, the report showed that the gap between the number of training courses followed by men and women was narrowing. Men took 4.9 training courses on average, compared to 4.8 training courses for women. The largest gap in access to training was seen in companies in the "Agriculture and industry" sectors, where men benefited on average from 3.6 more training courses than women. Conversely, women had 0.8 more training courses than men in the "Arts, entertainment, recreation and other service activities" sector.
For 2021, state aid for continuing vocational training amounted to €32.5 million, an increase of 24% compared to 2020. The financial aid granted amounted, on average, to €18,976 per application and €9.8 per hour of training. It reached €143 per employee, i.e. 17% more than in 2020.
For further details, visit: https://www.lifelong-learning.lu/observatoire-de-la-formation/les-pratiques-de-formation-des-entreprises/fr
