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Hardly any young people can get excited about an apprenticeship in a trade (symbol image)
Photo: Marcus Chung Photography / Getty Images
Employers in Germany would have preferred a different start to the new training period.
"The balance at the start of the training year is unsatisfactory, despite the great efforts of the companies," said Rainer Dulger, President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA), the "Welt am Sonntag".
About nine percent fewer training contracts than in 2019
According to the Federal Employment Agency, more than 182,000 training places were vacant in August – 20 percent more than in the same month last year.
“We now need a joint initiative by politics, business and society.
Dual training is an anchor of prosperity in our country,” said Dulger.
Daniel Schneider, General Manager of the Central Association of German Bakers, made a similar statement in the "Welt am Sonntag": "We expect the number of trainees to decrease and the number of vacancies to increase." Dual training is in crisis, he says Schneider further.
»The madness about graduating from high school and becoming academical must be stopped and the equivalence of studies and training must be emphasized more clearly and communicated clearly to young people and parents.«
During the corona crisis, comparatively few young people in Germany opted for dual training.
The Federal Statistical Office registered 466,200 new training contracts for the past year.
That was 0.6 percent more than in the first Corona year 2020, but again around nine percent less than in the pre-crisis year 2019, when more than 500,000 new training courses were started.
Hardly any optimism in the tourism industry
At the end of 2021, 1.26 million people in Germany were in dual vocational training, according to figures from the Federal Statistical Office.
That was three percent less than a year earlier.
more on the subject
Crafts, gastronomy, transport: number of training contracts at an all-time low
Fewer new trainees than ever before: The end of a successful German model by Matthias Kaufmann
Apprenticeships in retail, office and automotive are still popular.
Shifts can be seen, among other things, in IT professions such as IT specialists (increase of five percent) or in e-commerce salespeople (increase of 26 percent).
As at the beginning of the corona crisis, only a few young people started a cooking apprenticeship in 2021, but the number of trainees in system gastronomy increased (increase by 18 percent).
There is little confidence among merchants in the crisis-ridden tourism industry.
There, the number of new contracts fell by 26 percent after the sharp 61 percent slump in 2020.
German skilled trades have also long complained that many young people opted for a degree instead of an apprenticeship.
It was not until the end of July that Hans Peter Wollseifer, President of the Craft Industry, called for an "educational turnaround" in Germany in view of the shortage of skilled workers.
flg/fla/dpa