Factsheet for measure
FR-2019-1/2702
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Updated
– measures in France
Personal training account (CPF)
Compte Personnel de Formation (CPF)
Background information
The CPF is part of the occupational personal account (Compte personnel d’activité, CPA), which aims at securing the individual's professional career by strengthening freedom of action and removing obstacles to mobility. The personal training account (CPF) allows workers with 16 years of age or more to acquire training entitlements that are registered in the account for the whole working life. Changing jobs or alternating between work and unemployment does not affect an individual's right to training. The account holder has full control over the use of the CPF, which cannot be debited without his/her consent.
Content of measure
The CPF replaced the individual right to training (DIF). Employees do not lose the hours acquired under the DIF. They must integrate them into the CPF before 31 December 2020 to keep them. From 1 January 2019, training entitlements acquired under the CPF are monetised and deducted in the Euro currency. Rights acquired in hours, in the public sector can be converted into Euro. The rights acquired in hours are converted at the rate of €15 per hour.
From 2020, if an employee works at least half of the legal or contractual working time for the whole year, the employer credits the CPF with up to €500 per year (subject to a total maximum of €5,000) at the end of the year.
Rights stated on the account can be supplemented at the time of use by the employer, the employee, sectoral-level collective agreements or by the public employment services. In case of unemployment, the account can be supplemented by the state or the competent regional employment authority. Collective agreements at company level might also provide for additional financial contributions paid by the employer towards personal training accounts.
In order to be eligible for the CPF, courses must be mentioned on an official list accessible online.
Updates
The following updates to this measure have been made after it came into effect.
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29 April 2024
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The use of the Personal Training Account (CPF) by employees to finance the training course of their choice is no longer a simple right to draw on it. A decree dated 29 April 2024 stipulates that employees must contribute €100 towards the cost of the training they choose to follow from 2 May 2024. It also allows this sum to be paid by the employer or the skills operator (‘ticket modérateur’). Lastly, this text extends the cases in which the remainder of the cost can be waived to employees using their ‘professional prevention account’ and those benefiting from a top-up payment following an accident at work resulting in permanent incapacity.
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Use of measure
In 2023, 1,335,900 training courses have be taken under the Personal Training Account (CPF), down 28% on 2022, according to DARES (2024). This decline is due to the introduction of regulatory and security measures, in particular France Connect+, the public identification tool, at the end of 2022. The decline is most marked among users with less than a baccalauréat. There are still more of them than in the working population, but their share will fall in 2023. The transport sector, where training for category B driving licences will see a limited decline (-4%), will remain the leading area of training, accounting for a third of training in 2023. Training in setting up a business, office automation and languages is down sharply. One tenth of CPF training courses are part-financed by the trainee, as their entitlements are not sufficient to cover the cost of the training.
Target groups
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Workers
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Businesses
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Citizens
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Applies to all workers
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Applies to all businesses
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Applies to all citizens
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Actors and funding
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Actors
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Funding
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National government
Public employment service
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Employer
National funds
Regional funds
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Social partners
Social partners' role in
designing the measure
and form of involvement:
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Trade unions
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Employers' organisations
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Role
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Consulted
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Consulted
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Form
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Direct consultation outside a formal body
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Direct consultation outside a formal body
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Social partners' role in the
implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:
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No involvement
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Main level of involvement: Peak or cross-sectoral level
Involvement
The CPF was created by the social partners in the framework of the ANI of 14 December 2013 aimed at securing professional careers to promote employment. The agreement was taken up by the law of 5 March 2014 on vocational training, employment and social democracy, which set up the CPF.
During the reform of vocational training launched on 12 October 2017. the social partners were consulted and some of their proposals or agreements were included in the law. Negotiations between the social partners were based on an overall roadmap and then on a guideline document launched by government, which left little room for manoeuvre for the social partners
Views and reactions
Thematic working groups on the training reform were organised with the social partners on 2021-2022, which allowed them to express their doubts about the reform, and in particular about the personal training account.
On the employers' side, the main criticism is the disconnection of the CPF from the company's needs. The CPME (Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) even believes that the CPF should be 'linked' to the company's skills development plan. Employers are in the best position to know which training courses are useful for the development of skills in the company,' emphasises François Asselin, President of the CPME. Today, they suffer from the lack of resources available to train employees, while the usefulness of the training offered to employees via the CPF remains, in many cases, to be demonstrated'. According to Medef president Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, 'it is absolutely necessary to correct the abuses and scams that have accompanied its development. The CPF must be refocused on the skills expected on the labour market by introducing co-decision between the employee and the employer on the use of part of the CPF'.
On the trade union side, there is also criticism. 'The personal training account is a failure', says Francois Hommeril, the president of CFE-CGC. He says he 'does not believe in the individualisation of rights. With the CPF, 'the employee, whose rights are individualised and monetised, finds himself alone in the face of a plethora of commercially aggressive offers, taking the risk of spending his budget on training courses that look attractive on paper, but in reality lack content or interest for his professional future. Finally, the CFE-CGC believes that "it is in the company that training has the best impact, and it cannot be otherwise.'
Sources
