The law n°2025-989 of October 24, 2025, has profoundly restructured the framework for support in career transition. The career transition period, effective from February 1, 2026, replaces Pro-A and collective transitions with a single mechanism. For employers managing the departure or reorientation of former employees, this regulatory change alters the way to structure pathways, mobilize funding, and coordinate stakeholders.
Career transition period: what the 2025 law changes for employers
The new mechanism unifies previously siloed processes. Where employers had to choose between Pro-A, professional transition projects, and collective transitions, they now have a single framework applicable to all employees, <strongregardless of their age or qualification level.
The expansion does not stop at the scope of beneficiaries. The career transition period can target both internal mobility and external mobility. We recommend thinking in terms of “pathways” rather than “reclassification,” even when the employee has already left the company.
Another shift: the transition is no longer limited to a leave of absence or training outside of working hours. The mechanism now allows for a combination of training, work activity, remote learning, and in-person sessions. This flexibility enables the construction of tailored pathways for each profile, which represents a concrete lever that platforms like formersessalaries.com integrate into their support logic for former employees.
Building a hybrid career transition pathway: training, work, and remote learning
The combination of training, work, and remote learning is not a gimmick. It addresses an operational constraint: an employee at the end of a contract or recently exited from the company cannot always dedicate themselves to a full-time training block for six months. Family obligations, the need for interim income, geographical distance from the training center—all these factors impact the completion rate of pathways.
We observe that the most successful pathways alternate among three modalities:
- In-person certified training modules, focused on technical skills or practical scenarios that remote learning cannot cover.
- Asynchronous remote learning sessions for theoretical skill development, with a pace adjusted to the beneficiary’s personal constraints.
- Periods of immersion or activity in the company (internships, short missions) that validate the alignment between the project and the reality of the targeted profession.
The role of the former employer does not end with the signing of the termination. Providing a detailed and up-to-date skills certificate facilitates the positioning of the employee in the appropriate training level and reduces the overall duration of the pathway.
Funding for the career transition of former employees: coordinating CPF, employers, and operators
The financial setup remains the main bottleneck. The CPF alone rarely covers the entirety of a long certified training program. The coordination between the personal training account, an employer contribution, and the funds from skills operators (OPCO) requires precise engineering.
First step: check the employee’s CPF balance before their departure. An employer contribution negotiated as part of the mutual termination can bridge the gap between the available balance and the actual cost of training. This point should be negotiated beforehand, not after the signing.
Second lever: OPCOs fund part of the career transition period, including for external mobility. The application must demonstrate the coherence between the employee’s project, the skills acquired, and the targeted profession. A poorly constructed application, with a vague project or training unrelated to the previous pathway, will be rejected.
Common mistakes in assembling the funding application
The first mistake is choosing the training before defining the project. The application should start from the target profession and work back to the training, not the other way around. Funding committees assess the coherence of the overall pathway, not the intrinsic quality of the training organization.
The second mistake concerns the timeline. Submitting an application after the end of the contract without anticipating the processing times (often several weeks) creates a break in the pathway. The financial setup must be completed before the actual departure date.
Skills assessment and professional development counseling: two tools not to be confused
The skills assessment and professional development counseling (CEP) are often presented as interchangeable. They are not.
The CEP is a free service, accessible to any active individual, that helps formalize a project. It does not produce an in-depth diagnosis of technical skills. The skills assessment, on the other hand, is a structured service (usually over several weeks) that results in a summary document usable for a funding application.
For a former employee whose project is still unclear, we recommend starting with the CEP before engaging in a skills assessment. Investing in a skills assessment when the target sector is not identified produces a generic document, which is of little use in convincing a funder.
- The CEP is used to explore options, identify promising sectors, and check the feasibility of the project.
- The skills assessment comes into play once the target sector is defined, to precisely map transferable skills and gaps to fill.
- The funding application relies on the conclusions of the assessment to demonstrate the coherence of the pathway.
Supporting a former employee in transition relies on a precise sequence: project framing, skills diagnosis, financial setup, and then entering training. Reversing or skipping a step lengthens the pathway and jeopardizes funding. The career transition period introduced in 2026 offers a more flexible framework, provided it is utilized methodically.
