Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

Print version Recommend this page Press release

37/ 2006
Bonn, 26.10.2006

Failing to obtain an apprenticeship: what do young people without a training place do?

Many young people help relieve the burden on the training places market by choosing to do something other than pursue their preferred course of a company apprenticeship. They opt for alternatives such as work experience, taking on a casual job or returning to school. A new study conducted by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) shows, however, that such courses of action are rarely voluntary. Although they are officially categorised as "placed", many such applicants left to make alternative arrangements are still seeking a training place, only just under a third being able to claim that where they have ended up largely matches their own training aspirations. Despite not having actively sought out their current arrangements, a further third had come to terms with the situation in which they now found themselves. The remaining third, however, generally perceived that they were in an "emergency situation".

According to preliminary reports issued by the chambers, this year approximately 560,000 to 570,000 young people are expected to have concluded a training contract by the end of September. Around 365,000 of these successful apprenticeship applicants came via the employment agencies, which registered a total of 763,100 applicants. The difficult situation on the training places market meant that over half, almost 400,000 young people, failed to find an apprenticeship. 49,500 of these are categorised as "not yet placed", the remaining 348,000 or so having already decided on an alternative by this time.

Working in conjunction with the Federal Employment Agency (BA), BIBB regularly conducts representative surveys with the aim of highlighting applicants' behaviour, motives and situations more closely. One of the main focuses of the last of these studies, carried out at the end of 2004, was a detailed look at the situation of "applicants left to make alternative arrangements". Even at that time, just under half of young people were embarking on activities other than apprenticeships.

• Around one in three had dropped out of the education and training system entirely: 5 % had taken on employment, 6 % had a casual job and 19 % were unemployed. The last named group also frequently contained young people who had looked for a job to tide them over, but had failed to find one.
• Many embarked upon further educational activities: around 30 % were taking part in vocational guidance and basic training courses (predominantly attending vocational schools and participating in vocational preparation schemes). 9 % had returned to general schooling, and 4 % were involved in work experience.
• Some of the young people had succeeded in finding a training place: 11 % were pursuing an apprenticeship, a further 5 % had commenced purely school-based vocational education and training and 3 % were in higher education. All of this meant that around 19 % had still managed to embark upon fully qualifying training.

The study found that only those young people involved in fully qualifying training were really content with their situation. Returning to school is also largely viewed in a positive light. On the other hand, vocational preparation schemes, the school-based pre-vocational training year and work experience placements rarely represent young people's first choice. Nevertheless, at least with time, many accept these as a sensible way of tiding themselves over.

In contrast to this, any alternatives outside the system of education and training are accorded an extremely negative evaluation. Around two thirds of young people who had found regular employment, for example, perceived this merely as a way of tiding themselves over, as a stop-gap solution or as a dead-end job.

The results of the BA/BIBB applicant survey have been published in
Eberhard, Verena; Krewerth, Andreas; Ulrich, Joachim Gerd (Ed.):
Mangelware Lehrstelle. Zur aktuellen Lage der Ausbildungsplatzbewerber in Deutschland. ("Apprenticeships in short supply. The current situation of training place applicants in Germany", German language publication.)

Ordering address:

W. Bertelsmann Verlag GmbH und Co. KG

Further English language information and tables on young people left to make alternative arrangements are available on the BIBB website at www.bibb.de/en/27399.htm

Point of contact at BIBB for further information:
Andreas Krewerth, Tel.: 0228 / 107-1110; e-mail: krewerth@bibb.de