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Budding industrial electrician (in Remscheid): The training market has also collapsed
Photo: Rupert OberhÅ user / imago images / Rupert Oberhäuser
According to calculations by the Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft (IW), the corona crisis cost Germany almost 300 billion euros in prosperity.
It will "take years for the losses and structural distortions to be balanced out," said IW boss Michael Hüther of "Welt am Sonntag".
Accordingly, the economy would have "grown significantly" without Corona.
For the calculations, the IW compared the actual and forecast growth with the so-called potential growth of the gross domestic product (GDP). This shows how strong the German economy would have grown in the past six quarters without the pandemic. Accordingly, the past three quarters alone accounted for almost 140 billion euros in lost growth.
Almost a third of this loss of added value is therefore due to the renewed lockdown as a result of the second wave, which is only now being relaxed due to the progress made in vaccination and the falling incidences, the newspaper reported on the IW calculation.
"The vaccination rate is finally increasing, that is a signal to the economy that should not be underestimated," said Hüther.
"Nevertheless, we must not succumb to the illusion that the crisis will no longer leave its mark."
The training market is also damaged
The training market also collapsed noticeably in the corona crisis.
By April 2021, both the number of applicants and the number of apprenticeships had decreased significantly compared to the previous year.
This is reported by the Funke media group, citing the Federal Employment Agency.
Accordingly, the number of applicants fell by ten percent in the 2020/21 training year.
By April there were around 345,000 people interested in an apprenticeship position nationwide.
In the same period, the employment agency recorded a five percent decline in the number of apprenticeships available.
The number of registered apprenticeships was recently around 429,800.
Detlef Scheele, head of the employment agency, justified this primarily with the corona crisis.
"The fact that there are currently fewer applicants for apprenticeships is not due to lower numbers among school leavers or a lack of interest among young people, but above all to the pandemic," Scheele told the Funke newspapers.
Where schools are closed, careers advice cannot take place in the classroom in the usual way.
According to the Employment Agency, there are currently fewer apprenticeships, especially in those sectors that are particularly hard hit by the consequences of the pandemic, such as the hospitality industry and tourism.
slü / AFP
