What is ‘Portage Salarial’?

‘Portage salarial’ is a form of employment which has been used in France for over a decade. In an uncertain economic climate, companies are less willing or able to hire workers with certain skills directly, especially if they don’t need these skills on a permanent basis. They prefer to call upon the services of external consultants. However, as being self-employed in France is quite a complicated matter and as remaining a ‘salarié’ (salaried employee) as opposed to a ‘non-salarié’ has clear advantages (entitlement to sickness benefit, better pensions etc.), many ‘portage salarial’ companies have sprung up to enable consultants in a variety of sectors to carry out independent missions while retaining their salaried status.

The ‘portage salarial’ company provides the legal framework through which the consultant is able to invoice his or her services as an independent. The consultant is then paid in salary and retains all the benefits of the salaried status.

‘Portage Salarial’ and TEFL in France

The ‘portage salarial’ concept has proved very useful in the TEFL sector in France for several reasons:

> it allows companies to work with non-independent trainers directly rather than through a training organisation;

> it allows small training organisations to call upon the services of non-independent external trainers without having to take the risk of hiring them directly;

> it allows trainers to carry out independent missions with companies or training organisations without becoming self-employed, to earn more money and to widen their professional experience;

> it can also be used as a step towards self-employment.

THE LANGUAGE NETWORK SERVICES

Having realised that ‘portage salarial’ was an excellent means of helping language trainers in their career development, in 2003 The Language Network created its very own ‘portage salarial’ structure called The Language Network Services.

The Language Network Services can carry any language-related mission (training, translation, proof-reading, language skills testing, materials writing …).

The Language Network Services, like The Language Network, is an ‘association à but non-lucratif’, which means that there are no shareholders expecting to make a profit on the activity. However, a commission of 12% or less is deducted from the HT amount of each invoice issued to cover the administrative costs of the service.

The Language Network Services takes care of the drawing up of contracts, invoicing and the following up of unpaid invoices. Consultants using this service can also obtain help with a variety of matters such as writing proposals and fixing their training rates. A range of ‘documents type’ is also available.