Training practices of companies

In 2016, Luxembourg private-sector companies requesting financial support from the State to fund a training plan allocated, on average, 2.5% of their total payroll to training. Training cost, on average, 53 euros per hour. Employees attended, on average, 5.2 training courses lasting 5 hours.

Employee access to training

On average, employees attend 5.2 training courses.

In 2016, employees attended on average 5.2 training courses. At 0.1 training course more than in 2015, the progress in employee attendance than began in 2012 is still slow, but continuous.

The duration of training courses is decreasing as the size of the companies is increasing. Courses are 2.6 longer in very small companies (fewer than 10 employees) than in very large companies (more than 1,000 employees).

Employees in managerial posts attend 7.7 training courses, on average.

Managers and executives (7.7 and 6.6 training courses respectively, on average) attend more training courses than skilled and unskilled employees (5.3 and 2.4 training courses respectively, on average).

Men have greater access than women to training courses: on average they attend 5.4 courses compared with 5.0. And employees over the age of 45 attend 4.3 training courses, on average.

Companies' training effort

Companies' investment in training has remained relatively steady in the past five years. In 2016, companies devoted 2.5% of their payroll to training. Companies in the "Transport & storage" and "Specialised, scientific and technical activities" sectors are at the top of the list, investing on average 4% and 3.4% of their payroll in employee training. As in preceding years, the financial effort of companies in the "Administrative and support services" sector is the lowest (1.4%).

Except in companies with at least 1,000 employees – where investment is above average, at 2.8% – financial effort decreases the larger the company.

While the average investment is 2.5% of payroll, very small companies – those with fewer than 10 employees – devote 4.2% of their payroll to staff training.

Training courses in "Management/HRM" account for 15% of companies' investment in training.

"Technical/core business" and "On-the-job training" together account for 53% of companies' investment, and 60% of the total number of hours of training delivered. The field of "Management/HRM" stands in third position, in terms of both amount invested (15%) and time spent in training (11%).

In terms of participation in training courses, the fields of "Quality, ISO and safety" and "Finance, accounting and law" come after "Technical/core business" (40%), accounting for 20 and 16% respectively of the total number of participants.

In 2016, a training course costs an average of 263 euros per participant. The highest average cost per participant in a training course was in the "Information and communication" sector (466 euros); this is because the average training period per participant was the longest (8,2 hours) and the average hourly cost of training among the highest (57 euros).

Public co-funding

In 2016 the State's financial contribution to continuing vocational training amounted to 62,1 million euros, an increase of 8,9% compared with 2015.

Overall, 2.024 companies benefited from State financial aid. Those companies, alone or as groups of companies, accounted for a total of 1.715 requests for co-funding (+6,7%), of which one in five was new.

The allocated co-funding amounted, on average, to 36.183 euros per application and 312 euros per employee. At a national level, 30,6% of private companies with 10 or more employees received financial support from the State and 57,5% of all private sector employees were represented.