Print version Recommend this page Press release
15/ 2005
Bonn, 14.04.2005
Young people who are "placed" often are not - Why the number of youths looking for a training place is larger than previously assumed
The demand for training places has been greatly underestimated for several years now:
According to statistics, 617,556 young people sought an in-company training place in 2004. However, this figure does not include at least 109,500 youths who were unable to find a training place that year. Chronic shortages on the training place market have resulted in the number of young people looking for a training place being underestimated: The chances of finding a training place have declined considerably since the early 1990s. And since unsuccessful applicants want to avoid unemployment, they have no choice but to sign up for a vocational preparation scheme, return to school or look for a job. As a result, these individuals are not included in statistics on unplaced applicants and are also no longer classified as seeking a training place - even when they continue intensive efforts to find a training place.
Experts drew attention to this problem at the conference organized by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Berufsbildungsforschungsnetz (AG BFN) vocational education and training research network on the subject The vocational training market and factors influencing it. The papers and reports from the conference have now been published by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training ("BIBB").
The experts at the conference emphatically advocated overhauling these statistics. To date, official education statistics have counted only two groups of young people as "seeking a training place": Those who had found a training place by the end of the year (2004: 573,000) and those who had not begun training or started an alternative course of action as of the end of the respective year and were consequently classified as "unplaced" (2004: 44,500). Applicants who chose to look for an alternative (2004: 330,500) are not included in these statistics.
This approach made sense in times when there were enough training places on offer to meet demand. Under these circumstances, anyone who opted for an alternative generally did so voluntarily. Today however, young people sign up for vocational preparation schemes, take up further schooling or look for a job to tide themselves over until a training place becomes available. A survey conducted by BIBB and the Federal Employment Agency indicates that 173,800 young people opted for an alternative in 2004 because they were unable to find a training place. Some 109,500 of them had written at least 20 applications.
For this group of young people, not being officially categorized as an "unplaced training place seeker" has not only statistical but also very personal consequences. These individuals no longer belong to the group targeted by follow-up placement campaigns launched by the "training pact" under which trade and industry aim to generate new training places. These campaigns focus exclusively on those applicants who have not pursued a tide-over measure. As a result, responsibility for those individuals who are not classified as "unplaced" shifts to the Federal Employment Agency at the end of the accounting year.
The German-language publication "Der Ausbildungsmarkt und seine Einflussfaktoren. Ergebnisse des Experten-Workshops vom 1. und 2. Juli 2004 in Bonn" (The training place market and factors influencing it. Results of the experts workshop held in Bonn from 1 - 2 July 2004) is available free of charge as an online publication at www.bibb.de/de/17494.htm or in print form. The print document can be ordered from the Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training), A 1.2 VÖ/Vertrieb (Publications Section), Robert-Schuman-Platz 3, 53175 Bonn, Germany. Tel.: + 49 (0) 228 107 - 1716 or 1717, fax.: + 49 (0) 228 107 - 2967, e-mail: Vertrieb@bibb.de
