Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

Inhalt

Unfilled training places exacerbate the skilled worker problem  

Unfilled training places - a problem of fit

Skills mismatch - something which is difficult to remedy and which often occurs

How do companies deal with a skills mismatch? Initial information on the methodological approach adopted 

Results

Differentiated consideration of the three case groups - significance of selected structural characteristics 

Characterisation of the case groups via training related characteristics

 "Logics" of case group alignment - overall observation of the influences of structural and requirements characteristics 

Discussion

Bibliography

Annex

Unfilled training places exacerbate the skilled worker problem

The situation on the labour market appears paradoxical. On the one hand, articles and reports that companies are wringing their hands at their lack of success in finding trainees are increasingly widespread (cf. information box "Voices from the daily press"). On the other hand, young people interested in finding a training place remain without an in-company apprenticeship, some for several years in succession. As of the cut-off date of 30 September 2009, around 17,000 of the training places registered at the Federal Employment Agency (BA) were still unfilled measured against just under 83,000 applicants registered by the BA as searching for a training place (Training Market Statistics of the BA). Although the vast majority of these 83,000 had entered a (temporary) alternative to an apprenticeship such as attendance at a full-time vocational school, participation in a vocational preparation scheme or commencement of an internship, just under 9,600 young people were completely unplaced (ibid).¹ 

It is also by no means the case that 2009 was the first year in which the phenomenon of unfilled training places and unplaced apprenticeship applicants occurred at the same time (cf. Training Market Statistics of the BA and Gericke, Krupp & Troltsch 2009 inter alia). Quite the contrary is the case. Over the past two decades, certain volumes of training places which it has not been possible to fill and of young people who have failed to secure a training place have always been recorded (ibid). This shows that other eras have also not succeeded in achieving a full balance between supply and demand.

Notwithstanding this, apprenticeship vacancies currently merit particular attention. The number of persons leaving working life due to reasons of age will shortly overtake the potential supply of young skilled workers at the threshold to entry to training and employment (cf. Ulmer & Ulrich 2008). This means that a shortage of skilled workers is impending. Unfilled training places may increase this risk still further due to the fact that they represent untapped potential in terms of training young skilled workers.

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Unfilled training places - a problem of fit

Since 2004, the data provided by the BA (published as of the cut-off date of 30 September each year) has indicated a continuous if moderate increase in unfilled training places. The 2007 and 2008 company surveys conducted by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) within the scope of the Training Monitor both show that the proportion of companies with unfilled training places remained constant at just under 15% (cf. Gericke, Krupp & Troltsch 2009). By way of contrast, the annual survey of Chamber of Industry and Commerce member companies carried out by the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) reveal a significant rise in apprenticeship vacancies at companies affected. The figure increased from 15% in 2007 to reach 21% for each of the years 2008 and 2009 (DIHK 2010).

Regardless of the actual dimension involved, unfilled training places may, in the same way as overall imbalances between training place supply and demand, fundamentally be viewed as the expression of a problem of fit or a so-called mismatch. Training place supply and training place demand do not fit (or 'match') together. Theoretical literature usually differentiates between four forms of mismatch which may occur individually or in combined form and play a part in causing apprenticeship vacancies (cf. Entorf 2001; Gericke, Krupp & Troltsch 2009). A regional mismatch occurs when training places are not provided in the regions in which a demand for training places exists and vice-versa. Such a situation may, however, also arise if a lack of mobility (on the part of applicants) prevents a training place from being filled. In 2009, the Federal Employment Office Districts in which regional mismatch problems were observed included Helmstedt, Recklinghausen and Wuppertal, where only about 75 training places were available for every 100 young people interested in obtaining an apprenticeship. They also occurred, albeit in the opposite direction, in the Federal Employment Office Districts of Stralsund and Munich, where there were approximately 106 training places for every 100 young people seeking them (BIBB Survey as of 30.09.2009). ²   An occupational mismatch refers to a constellation where companies offer training places in occupations which do not coincide with the occupational wishes of those seeking apprenticeships. This problem of fit caused by a surplus of training places on offer arose in 2009. The occupations most affected were restaurant specialist (434 more places than applicants as of the cut-off date of 30 September) and salesperson specialising in foodstuffs (729 more places than applicants as of the cut-off date of 30 September). Conversely, the most significant surplus of applicants was recorded in the training occupations of office management clerk (5,940 more applicants than places) and management assistant for retail services (6,906 more applicants than places) (BIBB Charts 2010).³   An information mismatch arises when an applicant is in possession of incomplete information regarding training place supply as a whole or when companies are insufficiently aware of the total population of interested parties. Since knowledge is difficult to record, however, it is not possible to state in more detail the extent to which insufficient information is the cause of unfilled training places. The final form of mismatch is a skills mismatch, where there are discrepancies between the performance requirements of the training place or of the company providing training and the qualifications which the applicant is able to provide. 

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Skills mismatch - something which is difficult to remedy and which often occurs

Whereas in the case of the three forms of mismatch first stated attempts can be undertaken to increase the matching of supply and demand via such means as an improvement in the information situation as regards training occupations, companies providing training and training place supply, via a stronger degree of networking between stakeholders or via financial support for people relocating or commuting, the situation presented by the skills mismatch is of a different order. This is something which can only be overcome by making compromises in respect of the entry requirements demanded (cf. inter alia Bellmann & Leber 2010). It appears, however, that companies providing training are only prepared to make such compromises to a limited extent. According to a company study carried out by the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) in 2009, only 18 percent of Chamber of Industry and Commerce member companies surveyed indicated a readiness to lower requirements with regard to the prior learning of applicants in order to be able to fill training places on offer in the light of prevailing acquisition conditions which were becoming more difficult (DIHK 2010). At the same time, the skills mismatch is the reason most frequently stated for vacant training places. Companies primarily view the applicants as the cause of this matching problem. In the same DIHK survey, just under two thirds of companies stated that unfilled training places were the result of insufficient qualifications on the part of applicants ⁴   Notwithstanding this, there are also indications that the companies may also be responsible for causing the skills mismatch. An analysis conducted by Gericke, Krupp & Troltsch (2009) shows that although unfilled training places occur against a background of a wide range of structural and regional factors the authors are able to demonstrate that of the two contrasting company groups included in the study - companies with unfilled training places and companies without unfilled training places - the former "place extremely high demands on the qualifications of young people in some cases" (ibid, p. 4).

These findings will serve the present paper as a basis for investigating the extent to which there is a correlation between successful or unsuccessful apprenticeship recruitment processes and company structural characteristics as well as between successful or unsuccessful apprenticeship recruitment processes and the skills requirements companies place on applicants. Within this context, the focus will be placed on the filling of training places which, in contrast to the recruitment of skilled workers (cf. inter alia Heckmann, Noll & Rebien 2009, 2010), is an aspect which has been widely neglected. This is the question as to the extent to which companies do not merely consider reducing the requirements they make of applicants in the interests of compensating for a skills mismatch but actually make such a reduction, thus filling training places with candidates who do not (fully) meet their desired requirements. ⁵ 

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How do companies deal with a skills mismatch? Initial information on the methodological approach adopted

In order to be able to address issues relating to the significance of the skills mismatch for problems in filling training places and therefore to be in a position to investigate the way in which companies deal with this, a survey of 1,068 companies providing training conducted by BIBB at the end of 2008 will serve as a basis (cf. explanatory box "Design of the company survey").

Design of the company survey

Within the context of the discussion centring on quality and quality assurance in company-based training practice, BIBB conducted a survey of companies providing training at the end of 2008 which focused on the structure and implementation of in-company training. The survey initially contacted 7,667 companies from the secondary and tertiary economic sector by telephone to request participation. These companies were taken from the company database of the Federal Employment Agency in accordance with a multi-disproportionately stratified sampling plan. 4,599 companies agreed to receive the questionnaire. 1,362 companies returned usable responses. These included 1,068 responses which enabled weighting to be used to compensate for disproportionality based on all stratification characteristics (cf. also Ebbinghaus 2009).

Companies which responded to the questions:

• whether enough sufficiently suitable interested parties had applied for the apprenticeship(s) offered and
• whether all apprenticeships offered could be filled (N = 1,046)

can be divided into four groups (cf. Figure 1):

Case group I
Companies to which sufficiently suitable interested parties applied for all apprenticeships offered to be filled.
Case group II
Companies which filled all apprenticeships despite too few suitable applicants.
Case group III
Companies which were unable to fill all apprenticeships because of too few suitable applicants.
Case group IV
Companies which were left with unfilled apprenticeships despite an adequate number of suitable applicants.

Leaving aside case group IV, which includes only a very small number of companies⁶    - the following investigates what influence is exerted on the alignment of the companies to the differentiated case groups by company structural characteristics and company expectations of training applicants. Individual consideration will be accorded to the information available from the data records used in respect of:

• company size,
• the region in which the company is based,
• the economic sector to which the company ascribes itself,
• the chamber responsible for the area in which the company operates, 
• the expected requirements for skilled workers,
• the relevance of various possibilities of securing requirements for skilled workers,
• commencement of the search for trainees in relation to the beginning of training,
• the target group primarily sought as trainees and
• the importance of a series of selection and requirement criteria with regard to the training place applicants.
• More detailed information on the variables included is presented in the explanatory box "Summary of characteristics included".
  

Summary of characteristics included ⁷ 

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Results

The three case groups - general findings 

The three case groups considered in more detail here contain different numbers of companies (cf. Figure 1 and Table 1). Companies which succeeded in finding applicants for all training places offered make up the vast majority, although the young people contracted did not always meet the desired requirements of just under half of these companies. This means that the assumption can be made that the companies in this group were prepared to make compromises regarding the entry requirements for the young people. Notwithstanding this, it is also revealed that one in seven companies did not succeed in filling all training places offered due to a shortage of suitable applicants.

Whereas the present study thus arrives at virtually identical results regarding the proportion of companies with unfilled training places as the surveys conducted within the scope of the Training Monitor (Gericke, Krupp & Troltsch 2009), significant discrepancies are displayed compared with the outcomes of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) investigation which indicated a significantly higher proportion of companies with vacant apprenticeships (21%). The reasons for this are the fact that the surveys were undertaken at different times (the BIBB study used here dates from 2008 and the DIHK survey from 2009) as well as differences in the companies surveyed. Whereas the DIHK survey exclusively focused on companies within the area of responsibility of the Chambers of Industry and Commerce, the BIBB survey used by the present investigation also integrated companies from the areas of responsibility of the Chambers of Crafts and Trades and of other competent bodies, including bodies from within the public sector and the liberal professions. In addition to this, the present study and the DIHK survey also exhibit deviations with regard to the proportions of companies prepared to make compromises. If we adopt the same interpretation of willingness to compromise as is assumed here - i.e. filling all apprenticeships despite to few suitable applicants in accordance with the characteristics of companies from case group II - the present study shows such willingness to compromise on the part of the companies to be slightly more than twice as high as in the DIHK survey. Although this discrepancy is not fully capable of explanation, the assumption would be that the deviation in findings is largely due to differences in the structure of questioning. The DIHK study adopted a prospective approach which also focused on future training place processes regarding the willingness to reduce aptitude requirements in the interests of recruiting apprentices. The present study, by way of contrast, was retrospective and addressed the issue of apprenticeship recruitment procedures which had already taken place. It therefore follows that resources had already been invested in filling training places. Under these circumstances, the degree of willingness of companies to lower their sights in terms of entry qualifications rather than conclude recruitment processes entirely without success may have been greater than the degree of willingness shown with regard to a future perspective.

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Differentiated consideration of the three case groups - significance of selected structural characteristics

We should begin our investigation into the backgrounds of the variously successful recruitment processes by taking a look at the influence of structural company characteristics. This is an area which already reveals a number of conspicuous results (cf. Table 1). The differences shown due to company size come as less of a surprise. The explanation here is that larger companies usually offer more training places. This automatically raises the likelihood that one or more training places will not be able to be filled. Equally unsurprising are the differences between companies in West and East Germany. The fact is that demographic change is already significantly further advanced in East German regions than is the case in the western areas of the country. Much more conspicuous are the shifts which occur when a differentiation is made according to economic sectors and areas of responsibility of the competent bodies. These findings are of particular interest because, despite the high degree of correlation between economic sector and area of responsibility (the phi coefficient is .7), various tendencies are displayed according to the differentiation applied. This firstly affects companies in the public sector compared to companies subject to the area of responsibility of other competent bodies. Companies in the public sector belong disproportionately to case group II, i.e. companies which are seemingly prepared to lower their sights in terms of entry qualifications required in the interest of apprenticeship recruitment. They are correspondingly less frequently represented in case group III (companies with unfilled training places). Although the latter also applies to companies within the area of responsibility of the other chambers, these companies find a parallel disproportional representation in case group I - the group largely able to fill its training places in an ideal manner - rather than in case group II. Interestingly, group I also features under-representation from companies in the public sector. The second significant finding concerns companies in the secondary sector compared to those within the area of responsibility of the Chamber of Crafts and Trades. Whereas craft trade companies are conspicuously rare in case group I, the group seemingly prepared to compromise, they are instead somewhat disproportionately represented amongst companies complaining of vacancies due to skills mismatch problems (case group III). No conspicuous deviations are displayed in respect of companies in the secondary sector with regard to distribution across the entire sample.

 

Table 1:  Alignment to the three case groups according to structural characteristics
 (Line percentages given, see Annex for column percentages)

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Characterisation of the case groups via training related characteristics

Is it possible to construct correlations between case group alignment and training related characteristics which go beyond structural characteristics? The results below provide a highly multi-layered message in this regard.

 

Requirement for skilled workers and the importance of training in terms of covering this requirement

Astonishingly, no conspicuous findings are revealed when differentiating according to the amount of the expected requirement for skilled workers (cf. Table 2). The main expectation was that an accumulation of companies with a moderate and high requirement for skilled workers would occur in case group II, the case group characterised by its willingness to make compromises. Instead of this, it is precisely within this case group that companies assuming a medium requirement for skilled workers are represented proportionately whilst being under-represented in case group I (no recruitment problems) and, equally surprisingly, over represented in case group III (with vacant apprenticeships). Companies expecting comprehensive filling of positions on offer even exhibit an inconspicuous distribution pattern in overall terms. Conspicuous results are, however, displayed for companies who believe it will not be necessary to recruit in future or else only be necessary to recruit very few trainees. There is an accumulation of such companies in the group without apprenticeship recruitment problems (case group I), whereas they occur conspicuously rarely in the group with vacant training places (case group III).
How do companies intend to cover the expected requirement for skilled workers? This is another area in which no great differences between the three case groups are shown. Looking in individual terms at each of the four routes included here for the filling of vacant skilled worker positions, some degree of deviation is revealed in the categorisations of relevance between the three case groups, although companies in case group III (with unfilled training places) consistently evaluate the importance of such routes more highly than companies contained within case groups I and II. If, however, an order of priority is established in respect of the degree of importance accorded to the various routes, company training is the number one way of securing the requirement for skilled workers for all three case groups. Notwithstanding this, company training shares top position with continuing training of workers already employed at the company in case group I (no recruitment problems). This route comes in second position in the other two case groups. The order of the two remaining recruitment options is also the same in all three case groups: recruiting experienced skilled workers from the market followed by recruiting inexperienced skilled workers.

Table 2 :  Alignment to the three case groups according to requirement for skilled workers and strategies for covering this requirement^8 9

 

What is the nature of the way in which trainees are recruited? Are any comparable parallels between the case groups discernable in this regard?

 

Time structure, target group and requirements for the trainee search

Contrary to expectations, companies which began to search for trainees at relatively short notice conspicuously rarely experienced problems in acquiring sufficient suitable applicants to be able to fill all of their training places, whereas companies who began searching with a long lead time experienced difficulties in obtaining enough suitable applicants on a conspicuously frequent basis. Just over one in five companies did not succeed in finding enough suitable applicants to fill the number of training places on offer despite a recruitment period of seven months' duration and more. At the same time, the proportion of companies commencing the search process at an early stage and succeeding in avoiding skills mismatch problems is disproportionately small. Of the companies commencing a preliminary search for suitable candidates no earlier than six months before the beginning of training, only one in twenty is affected by the problem of having to accept vacancies because of a mismatch between the performance requirements of the training place or of the company providing training and the qualifications which the applicant is able to provide. Such companies even succeed in obtaining a skills match somewhat more frequently than is the case on average.

On the other hand, there is virtually no correlation between differences in the target group primarily approached and the outcome of the recruitment process. Only the proportion of companies interested in training place applicants both with or without an upper secondary school leaving certificate/university entrance qualification is somewhat more highly represented than expected in case group II (companies willing to make compromises) and somewhat less represented than expected in case group III (companies with unfilled training places). Notwithstanding this, the primary search for school leavers with upper secondary school leaving certificate/university entrance qualification tends to be more strongly represented in case group III.

Table 3:  Alignment to the three case groups according to characteristics of the recruitment approach ^{10 11}

 

By way of contrast, there is significant deviation with regard to the preferences expressed by the three case groups as to the requirements to be fulfilled by the training place applicants in addition to the school leaving certificate favourised. If a similar approach is adopted to that taken in respect of the routes to filling skilled worker positions by establishing an order of priority for the suitability criteria listed in Table 3 on the basis of degree of relevance accorded, the picture reflected in Table 4 results.

 

Table 4:  Ranking of requirements for training place applicants

 

Both the mean evaluations of relevance and the conversion of these into a ranking order reveal that companies in case group III (companies with unfilled apprenticeships) accord greater weighting to the provable and measurable performance criteria of school marks and results of aptitude tests than is the case in respect of the other two case groups. Conversely, they place lower requirements on the occupationally related prior information and experiences of the training place applicants than the other two comparison groups.

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"Logics" of case group alignment - overall observation of the influences of structural and requirements characteristics

We have thus far observed the influences and correlations which exist in relation to the three variously successful groups of companies for the various structural and requirement characteristics on an individual basis. This process has not taken into account the extent to which the effects exerted by the structural and requirement characteristics overlap or can be traced back to the intervening effect of one of the other variables. Such correlations exist, however, in most cases. If we now seek to discover which characteristics actually play a role in terms of how the filling of training places is structured, we will need to monitor these correlations. Expressed in simple terms, the focus needs to be on ascertaining whether and how a characteristic exerts an influence on the alignment of a company to one of the three case groups when the influence of all other characteristics is "filtered out". A procedure which will facilitate this is a multinomial logistic regression analysis.

This process is used below to investigate the extent to which the alignment of a company to (1) companies in case group I which were able to fill all training places with suitable applicants, to (2) companies in case group II which were able to fill all training places by lowering their sights with regard to entry qualifications or to (3) companies in case group III, which were left with unfilled training vacancies due to an insufficient number of suitable applicants can be systematically related to company structural and requirement characteristics and, if this is the case, via which of these characteristics. .¹²    This system is calculated and expressed in the form of the relative chances of being aligned to one case group rather than another (of two contrasting) groups. Because three case groups form the object of the present considerations, three relative chances are calculated in pairs. These are: (A) the chance of being aligned to case group II rather than case group I, (B) the chance of being aligned to case group III rather than case group I and (C) the chance of being aligned to case group III rather than case group II. This covers all possible comparative pairs. The explanatory box "Guidance for Table 5" contains information on and examples of the interpretation of the relative chances.

Guidance for Table 5
The multinomial logistical regression involved the investigation of the influence exerted by various variables on the case group alignment of companies. In the case of the categorial influence variables, characteristics are divided into categories (classes), whereas in the case of the metric influence variables characteristics extend along an ongoing continuum. The results of the multinomial logistical regression need to be interpreted somewhat differently depending on which influence variable is involved.
Categorial variables (with reference level): in the case of categorial variables, the relative chance is always calculated for companies of a characteristic category in relation to companies of a reference category. Interpretation takes place as follows. If a value is greater than 1, the chance that companies to which the respective characteristic (shown in the line) applies will belong to the first case group named in the column heading is, in comparison to companies in the reference category greater than the chance that they will belong to the last named case group in the column heading. If a value is less than 1, the contrary applies.
Example: compared to the reference category of the smallest size of company (1-9 employees), the chance that small companies (10-49 employees) will be aligned to case group II rather than case group I is greater by a factor of 3.775.
Metric variables (without reference level): because no reference category is formed in the case of metric variables, this makes interpretation somewhat easier. If a value is greater than 1, this means the following. If the extent of the influencing characteristic increases by the value of 1, the chance that companies will be aligned to the first named case group rather than the last named case group will increase by the factor shown. If a value is less than 1, the contrary applies.
Example: if the relevance of a company's own training as a strategy for securing skilled worker requirements increases by one scale value, the chance that a company will be aligned to case group II rather than case group I will increase by the factor 1.556. 

The top part of Table 5 shows that the influence of structural characteristics on case group alignment is, as implied in the descriptive analyses (cf. Table 1) broadly confirmed. The result of the training place recruitment procedure thus significantly depends on the region in which a company is domiciled. In the case of companies from East Germany, the chance of being aligned to case group III (companies with unfilled training places) instead of case group I or case group II is significantly greater compared to companies from West Germany. In other words, companies from the federal states of the former West Germany are more likely than companies from the federal states of the former East Germany to be able to fill all training places, even if this means having to make compromises in terms of entry qualifications. Such a finding comes as no real surprise given the different demographic developments in the two parts of the country. The economic sector contributes solely to delineating case group II (companies prepared to make compromises) from the two other case groups. The greatest chances of compromises in the case of applicant qualifications are to be found in the public sector. By way of contrast, such chances are virtually non-existent in the tertiary sector. One interesting aspect is the fact that company size - and ultimately therefore the volume of training places offered - ¹³   is of almost no significance to the result of the apprenticeship recruitment process when controlled against the other structural characteristics.

Table 5: Criteria applied for the alignment of companies to the individual case groups
(statement of odds ratios)

 

If we turn our consideration to expected skilled worker requirements and to the routes via which such requirements are secured, we also find a number of interesting indications of the "logics" forming the background to case group alignment. Expected skilled worker requirements mainly impacts on the separation of case group I (no recruitment problems) from case groups II and III. As already implied descriptively, an interesting aspect is the fact that, compared to companies with at the most a very low level of requirement for skilled workers, both companies with moderate and high skilled worker requirements tend to belong to one of the case groups which has recruitment problems (case groups II and III) rather than to the case group not experiencing such problems. The importance accorded to a company's own training for securing skilled worker requirements, on the other hand, contributes towards a clear separation between case group I and the other two groups. If a high degree of importance is attached to this aspect, companies tend to be more willing to make compromises in terms of entry qualifications. If, on the other hand, a company's own training is not given a high level of importance within human resources policy, apprenticeships tend to remain unfilled if the desired candidate is not found.

Approaches adopted with regard to applicant recruitment and selection open up particularly informative insights into the systems underlying apprenticeship recruitment procedures with different end results. One particularly noticeable aspect here, and this is something which runs contrary to expectations, is that early commencement of the search for future apprentices reduces the chances of finding such trainees rather than increasing them. Even more noticeable, however, are the correlations to the target groups and selection criteria. Firstly, companies without vacancies are - irrespective of the reasons why they have recorded no vacancies - more flexible than companies with unfilled training places when it comes to the preferred school leaving qualification of the future trainees. Secondly, companies with and without vacancies as well as companies which could fill their apprenticeships with or without compromises are guided by different criteria in the applicant selection process. If we begin by contrasting companies with and without vacancies, the former attach considerably more weight to prior performance shown at school than the latter. By way of contrast, the latter evaluate personal impression and committed membership of a club more highly than the former, meaning that the latter set greater store by factors of a more social nature. Finally, a comparison of companies which have entered into compromises in apprenticeship recruitment with companies which had no reason to make such compromises reveals that companies which felt they were forced to make compromises place higher requirements on test performances, prior occupational information and knowledge of foreign languages than the comparison group. This means that companies able to fill all their training places without difficulty place a lower level of requirements on their future trainees in overall terms than was the case with companies which experienced problems of one kind or another in filling their training places.

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Discussion

The findings make it clear that both the occurrence of a skills mismatch and the way in which such a mismatch is dealt with are not subject to a simple form of "if, then" logic within the context of the filling of training places. Notwithstanding this, certain system patterns are discernable.
As far as the occurrence of matching problems in apprenticeship recruitment are concerned, particularly the differences which have emerged here between companies from East and West Germany indicate that the difficulties in the acquisition of future trainees considered in the present paper from the perspective of the skills mismatch are not solely caused by a lack of match between the qualifications expected by the companies and those provided by the applicants. Instead of this, these findings support the thesis that aspects of other forms of mismatch, especially regional mismatch, are being brought to bear. It is perfectly possible that these other forms of mismatch are exacerbating the skills mismatch. What do we mean by this? Demographic developments render it likely that the pure number of young people applying for a training place in the federal states of the former East Germany has changed rather than the composition of applicants. The consequences of this are that companies are not able to "draw from a full pack" to the extent that was possible in previous years when there were still significant applicant surpluses and that skills mismatch problems tend to become clearly visible.
In addition to this, the findings also provide clear evidence that there is a correlation between recruitment or matching problems and the requirements which companies make of training place applicants. In the area of performance (test results, school learning, knowledge of foreign languages), companies with recruitment problems place higher requirements than companies without recruitment problems. The latter place a comparatively higher value on social competence (impression, committed membership of a club).

The present findings seem to indicate that the way in which skills related difficulties handled within the training place recruitment process, in other words whether requirements made of applicants are reduced or apprenticeships remain unfilled, primarily depend upon the degree of importance attached to training in company human resources policy. The overall model clearly shows that there is a significant increase in the chances of entering into compromises with regard to applicant qualification when a company's own training is viewed as an important instrument for securing the requirement for skilled workers. If, on the other hand, a company's own training plays a lesser role in personnel policy, the tendency is for training places to remain unfilled in the absence of the desired candidate. ¹⁴     The extent to which the differing emphasis of the requirements criteria shown to occur between companies prepared to make compromises and companies not prepared to make compromises already lends expression to the various ways in which skills mismatches are handled is, however, a question which cannot be answered at this juncture. Neither can a response be offered in respect of the question as to whether adaptation processes to meet changed circumstances have already taken place especially at companies not reporting any recruitment problems. It would also be perfectly plausible to assume that the different requirements shown to be made of future applicants represent a range of standards which have developed over the course of time. These standards have their origins in the fact that hitherto predominantly young people with a specific qualifications profile have applied for a training place at certain companies. Since the available data do not contain the information on applicant structure required to clarify this issue, any response must be left to continuing studies.

In summary, the findings provide insights into the complex interplay of various factors for the occurrence of (skills) mismatches and for dealing with matching problems in training place recruitment. They also enabled the confirmation of findings from other studies showing that companies contribute to the creation of vacancies or skills mismatches by the requirements level they themselves formulate (cf. with regard to training places: Gericke, Krupp, Troltsch 2009 and with regard to skilled worker jobs, Noll & Rebien 2009, 2010). It is, however, at the same time clear that the differentiation between cause and effect is not a simple one. This is particularly implied by the findings relating to the commencement of recruitment, which indicate complex reciprocal relationships between requirements, duration of search and result of search. There are thus some suggestions to support the assumption that early entry into the recruiting of future trainees tends to be motivated more by an interest in being able to select the most suitable candidate from a large number of applications rather than being a cause of the end result of the recruitment procedure. This is at least confirmed by findings from the BIBB Training Monitor (Gericke, Krupp & Troltsch 2009), which shows that larger companies in particular tend to pursue this strategy. Notwithstanding this, failure to find trainees may also force early entry to the recruitment procedure. In order to investigate such suppositions, however, continuous data would be required rather than the snapshot data available here.

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Literatur:

The translations of German institutions/organisations and of the titles/publication details of the German language works included in the bibliography merely serve as an indication of the nature of these institutions/organisations and of the content of the works. This material is not necessarily available in English.  

• Bellmann, Lutz; Leber, Ute: Bildungsökonomie. Skript zur Lehrveranstaltung ,Arbeit, Personal und Bildung' im Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften an der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Sommersemester 2010 [Script for the lecture 'Work, human resources and education' given in the Economic Sciences Faculty at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, summer semester 2010].
  http://www.iab.wiso.uni-erlangen.de/lehre/files/Skript_Bildungsoekonomik.pdf (Status: 27.09.2010)
• Bundesagentur für Arbeit: Ausbildungsmarktstatistik (Stichtag 30.09). Verfügbar unter: Statistik der BA - Detaillierte Informationen - Ausbildungsmarkt [Federal Employment Agency: Training Market Statistics (cut-off date 30 September. Available in the statistical section of the BA website]
  http://www.pub.arbeitsamt.de/hst/services/statistik/detail/c.html
• Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB), Erhebung zum 30. September 2009 [Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), survey as of 30 September 2009/Table 37.2], Status 21.01.2010
  http://www.bibb.de/dokumente/pdf/naa309_2009_tab037_2regional.pdf, (Status: 27.09.2010)
• Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, Schaubilder zur Berufsausbildung [Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), Vocational Training Charts] - 2010 Edition/Chart 2.5
  http://www.bibb.de/dokumente/pdf/AB0205.pdf (Status: 27.09.2010)
• Deutscher Industrie- und Handelskammertag: Ausbildung 2010 - Ergebnisse einer IHK-Unternehmensbefragung [Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK): Training 2010 - results of a survey of Chamber of Industry and Commerce member companies], Berlin 2010
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Anhang

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footnotes:

¹Figures do not include authorised local government providers, see Ulrich, Flemming & Granath 2010.

²Information provided on the ratio between supply and demand is based on the extended definition of the Supply and Demand Relation. This accords consideration on the demand side to applicants who continue to search for a training place whilst having entered an alternative (Ulrich, Flemming & Granath 2010).

³With regard to demand, cf. footnote 2.

⁴Damit handelt es sich zugleich um den mit Abstand am häufigsten genannten Grund für Vakanzen, gefolgt von "andere Gründen" mit 24% und dem Nichtantritt von Ausbildungsstellen mit 19% (DIHK 2010). Es ist allerdings zu berücksichtigen, dass sich den Ausführungen nicht genau entnehmen lässt, ob sich die Prozentangaben auf alle befragten Betriebe beziehen (was aufgrund anderer Befragungsdaten zu vermuten ist, vgl. Ebbinghaus 2009) oder nur auf solche, die tatsächlich Lehrstellenvakanzen zu verzeichnen hatten.

⁵The shortage of training places in past years has meant that interest has tended to focus on the question of whether the training place taken up fulfils the desired requirements of the young people.

⁶Although the vacancies at companies within this case group may appear inexplicable at first glance, the probable explanation is that no training contract has been concluded because applicants have preferred another company.

⁷Missing values (missings) were replaced via a simple imputation algorithm wherever possible.

⁸Table2: This variable was formed by allocating the response pattern to questions regarding the relevance of (1) the company's own training in the commercial sector, (2) the company's own training in the technical sector and (3) the company's own training in the commercial sector for securing the requirement for skilled workers.

⁹Table2: This variable was formed by allocating the response pattern to questions regarding the relevance of (1) the recruitment of career entrants trained in other companies and (2) the recruitment of school-trained career entrants for securing the requirement for skilled workers.

¹⁰Table 3: This variable was formed as an overall indicator from the evaluation of the importance of the following two requirements: (1) "proper and error-free application documents" and (2) "good impression made at interview".

¹¹Table 3: This variable was formed as an overall indicator from the evaluation of the importance of the following three requirements: (1) "good school marks in German", (2) "good school marks in mathematics" and (3) "good school marks in science subjects".

¹²The only characteristic excluded from the analysis was "competent body responsible" since there is, as already mentioned, an extremely high degree of correlation between this characteristic and the characteristic "economic sector". The correlations between all remaining characteristics prove to be significantly lower. This means that the collinearity test (diagnosis of the determinants of the correlation matrix) does not reveal any unexpected results.

¹³The number of training places on offer normally rises with company size. 

¹⁴Notwithstanding this, it should be pointed out in this context that the readiness revealed in the public sector to take on young people not in possession of the ideal training profile is based on stipulations for the fulfilment of defined training quotas.

Last modified on: December 21, 2010