Strategy PapersOctober 20, 2026

Skills shortages: when mid-sized companies train their own people. Company CFA, academy or retraining?

Hiring difficulties are easing in France. Not for every job. Welders, maintenance technicians, truck drivers, roofers and care assistants remain impossible to find in many labour markets. For a mid-sized company hiring across several sites, the answer increasingly lies in training its own people. Three tools exist; they differ in audience, cost and lead time.

What the 2026 BMO survey says

France Travail's Labour Needs survey (BMO), published on 21 April 2026, counts nearly 2.3 million recruitment projects for 2026, down 6.5% year on year. Employers consider 43.8% of them difficult, the lowest level since 2017. The average hides jobs where difficulty remains very high:

Construction: 139,504 projects, 65.2% considered difficult.
Care assistants: 62,100 projects, 56.6% considered difficult.
Nurses and midwives: 36,700 projects, 60.2% considered difficult.
Truck drivers: nearly 27,000 projects, 54% considered difficult.
Refrigeration and air-conditioning maintenance technicians: about 80% of projects considered difficult, according to the survey's open data.

In metalworking, the UIMM employers' federation reports nearly 40,000 vacancies, almost half of all vacancies in industry. The industry's joint observatory estimates needs at around 200,000 hires a year by 2030-2035 in its central scenario.

When the market cannot supply the profiles, they have to be trained. Our analyses of metalworking and the defence industry detail these shortages by sector. This article compares the tools.

Three tools to train your own people

	Company CFA	In-house academy and qualifications	Retraining period
Audience	Young people and adults hired as apprentices	Current employees and new hires	Current employees, moving to another job
Framework	Declared training organisation delivering apprenticeships	Training organised by the company; own qualifications or prepared for a certifier	Law no. 2025-989 of 24 October 2025, in force since 1 February 2026
Main funding	Contract funding level, paid by the OPCO	The company's skills development plan	OPCO flat rate, or €9.15 per hour where no industry rate is set
What the company controls	Programmes, pace, apprentice recruitment	Content, pace, recognition of skills	Choice of employees and target jobs

The company CFA. Since the law of 5 September 2018, a company can open its own apprenticeship centre (CFA) without an agreement with the region. It is a declared training organisation that carries out the fourteen missions of CFAs set by article L. 6231-2 of the Labour Code. Unlike other CFAs, its statutes do not have to mention apprenticeship. Quality certification remains mandatory to be funded by the skills operator (OPCO). The company can also deduct from its apprenticeship tax the costs of its CFA hosting its own apprentices, within a limit set by decree. It is the most structuring tool: it trains new entrants for your own jobs, at your pace, and it is funded per contract.

The in-house academy and qualifications. The academy trains current employees and new hires. To recognise the skills acquired, there are two routes. The company can register its own qualifications in the RNCP: France compétences then examines graduates' employment outcomes, the quality of the frameworks and access through validation of prior experience. More simply, the academy can prepare the qualification of a partner certifier, which authorises it for training or assessment.

The retraining period. Since 1 February 2026, it has replaced Pro-A and collective transitions. Open to any employee, it funds 150 to 450 hours of training over twelve months at most; a company or industry agreement can raise this ceiling to 2,100 hours over thirty-six months. For an internal move, pay is maintained and a written agreement between employee and employer is enough. According to a Ministry of Labour FAQ reported by Centre Inffo, the training must be delivered by a declared training organisation: an academy declared as a training organisation, or a company CFA, can therefore provide it.

Apprenticeship hiring aid at the end of 2026

Decree no. 2026-168 of 6 March 2026 sets the apprentice hiring aid for contracts signed since 8 March 2026 and starting before 1 January 2027. It covers the first year of the contract:

Qualification prepared	Fewer than 250 employees	250 employees or more
Levels 3 and 4	€5,000	€2,000
Level 5	€4,500	€1,500
Levels 6 and 7	€2,000	€750

Companies with 250 employees or more must reach a work-study threshold (5%, or 3% with a 10% increase) by 31 December of the year following signature. For an apprentice with a recognised disability, the aid can reach €6,000. Since 1 July 2025, the employer also pays the CFA a €750 contribution for each contract preparing a level 6 or higher diploma.

A contract signed at the end of 2026 but starting in January 2027 is not covered by this scale: renewal of the aid in 2027 has been announced, but no text has been published to date.

The multi-site case

A mid-sized company does not train one welder, but thirty, across six plants. Three principles keep quality and cost under control:

A single framework. The same target skills and the same assessments on every site, built with front-line managers.
Measuring skills on entry. An experienced maintenance technician and an operator retraining do not need the same path. Measuring the gap between acquired and target skills avoids paying for unnecessary hours.
Management from headquarters. Number of people in training per site, progress, success rate, cost per skill acquired: shared indicators, tracked every month.

The link with workforce planning

These tools make sense within workforce and career planning (GEPP). The skills map identifies the jobs to train for first. The career-path review, which replaced the professional review on 26 October 2025, takes place during the first year after hiring, then every four years. It is the natural moment to offer a retraining period or an academy path. Collective agreements that set a different frequency had to be brought into line by 1 October 2026.

Key takeaways

43.8% of recruitment projects are considered difficult in 2026, but over 60% in construction and nursing.
A company CFA trains new entrants for your jobs, funded per contract by the OPCO.
An in-house academy trains current employees; its qualifications can be its own or prepared for a partner certifier.
The retraining period has replaced Pro-A since 1 February 2026: 150 to 450 hours, up to 2,100 hours by agreement.
Apprentice hiring aid ranges from €750 to €5,000 depending on company size and level, for contracts starting before 1 January 2027.

How Mentivis can help

Mentivis is a training operator: we design, open and run schools, apprenticeship centres and corporate academies. For a mid-sized company facing skills shortages:

A company CFA, from declaration to the first intake, then its operation: set up a CFA.
An in-house academy and its qualifications: corporate academy and RNCP certification.
Skills mapping and workforce planning: GEPP in companies, and our training diagnostic to check your obligations in 10 minutes.
Individualised paths across all your sites: MentivisOS measures each person's skills and generates their path.

To discuss it, book a 30-minute call.

Sources

Further reading: company CFA: definition, conditions and creation, how to set up a CFA in 2026, RS or RNCP: which certification to choose, funding an employee's retraining, managing training in a multi-site group and building a skills map.

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