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28 percent of companies reduced the number of their apprentices in 2020
Photo: Rupert Oberhäuser / imago images
According to the state development bank KfW, no rapid recovery is in sight for the time being on the German training market.
According to a KfW survey, one in four SME training companies (26 percent) expects to have fewer apprentices under contract at the end of the year than at the end of 2020. Only 15 percent expect an increase.
In the course of the past year, 28 percent of the companies had reduced the number of apprentices.
According to KfW, small and medium-sized companies with annual sales of up to 500 million euros traditionally provide the majority of vocational training in Germany.
They employed around 90 percent of all trainees.
Of the total of 3.8 million medium-sized companies, around 450,000 are training companies.
These are mainly larger companies with more than 50 employees.
The figures gave little hope for a quick recovery or catch-up effects on the German training market, analyzed KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib: “The willingness to take on long-term responsibility for trainees is possibly due to uncertainty about the slow vaccination rate and the Delta variant braked. "
Also in view of the shortage of skilled workers, it is important that the training activity returns to the pre-crisis level as soon as possible.
sem / dpa
