Voting on the Apprentice Statute in the Federal Senate Plenary is postponed

The new text preserves the central pillars of professional learning in the country, the result of a broad institutional dialogue carried out between the Brazilian Federation of Socio-educational Associations of Adolescents (Febraeda), training entities, such as the Business-School Integration Center – CIEE, Ministry of Labor and Employment, Labor Tax Audit, Public Ministry of Labor and contracting establishments from the most diverse sectors. The joint mobilization was decisive in rejecting proposed amendments presented by Senators that excluded functions from the calculation basis of mandatory quotas, and would result in the elimination of almost half a million active apprenticeship contracts.

With approval by the Commission, the project went to vote in the Plenary of the Federal Senate on August 12, 2026. However, ten (10) amendments were resubmitted aiming to exclude segments of the service sector, transport, surveillance, agribusiness, among others, from the mandatory contracting.

On International Youth Day, Senators Jaime Bagattoli, Laércio Oliveira, Teresa Cristina, Rogério Marinho, among others, were spokespersons for these sectors and left our young people further away from work and development opportunities, obstructing the vote on the Apprentice Statute. The project was removed from the agenda due to the great risk of ending the only preventive and intersectoral public policy for qualified and protected insertion in the world of work, with repercussions on Education and Social Assistance.

"With the postponement of the vote, those who pay the price are the young people who need income, qualifications and would have in the Apprentice Statute the opportunity to build a worthy life project with real chances of growth. There is no possibility of agreement with sectors that want to exempt themselves from social responsibility and that do not see Apprenticeship as an investment in professional qualifications - which would even meet a growing demand in the world of work. There is no dialogue when those paying the price are 500,000 (five hundred thousand) teenagers and young people who already work and will be fired, or even the millions who would follow them and will no longer have this opportunity. We are talking here about an affirmative action that guarantees a constitutionally foreseen right, the right to professionalization.

Humberto Casagrande, CEO of CIEE, states that PL 6,461/2019 establishes an important milestone for the professional learning of adolescents, young people and people with disabilities and consolidates and updates the legislation, ensuring the sustainability of the learning model in Brazil, increasing the number of hires. "For us, who have been working with learning in Brazil for more than six decades, the approval of the Statute is a victory and shows that the efforts in favor of young people and adolescents in Brazil are worth it. I also highlight that the Bill does not address the quotas established in Law 10,097/2000. There is no change in this sense, it does not create new obligations, it does not generate costs or expenses, it does not include new sectors, it does not change this system. All of this has already existed for over 25 years, it was determined in the 2000s. We cannot admit the regression. We will continue fighting to offer more and more formal work opportunities to Brazilian youth and opening doors to those looking for their first professional experience” - reinforces Casagrande.

Among the main advances that the PL brings, we highlight the priority of assistance to adolescents in situations of vulnerability and social lack of protection, regulation of the “optional” hiring of Apprentices by the direct, autonomous and foundational Public Administration, the possibility of hiring up to 1 (one) apprentice for establishments that have up to 7 (seven) employees (which represent 93% of the CNPJS active in our country and are currently prohibited from hiring). In this initiative, we are talking about generating at least 1,000,000 (one million) new opportunities.

Furthermore, it maintains all currently existing rights, qualifying the development of Learning Programs, when it starts to require physical, assistive, technological infrastructure, human resources team and establishes a minimum theoretical workload of theoretical training concomitant with the Apprentice's practical activity in the contracting establishment.

It also meets important demands from the productive sector, which also participated in the construction of the current text in the 7 years in which it was discussed in the Chamber of Deputies, before its approval by that House.