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54/ 2011
Bonn, 15.12.2011
Rising supply of training places - more unfilled apprenticeships - many young people still seeking placements
Situation in the apprenticeship-place market in 2011
The situation on the apprenticeship-place market for young people has shown further im-provement in comparison to the year before. According to the results of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) survey of newly concluded apprentice-ship contracts, the total supply of apprenticeship places has risen by over 20,000 compared to the year 2010. The number of newly concluded apprenticeship contracts rose by around 10,000 (+1.8 %) to over 570,000. Companies trying to fill apprenticeship places in 2011 found it more difficult than it has been for the last 15 years: close to 30,000 (around 5 %) remained unfilled, an increase of 10,000 on the previous year's figure. Nevertheless, there were still more young people searching for apprenticeships without success than unfilled vacancies. Around 76,700 young people (including 65,100 with and 11,600 without alternative training or employment lined up) were still seeking an apprenticeship when the 2011 reporting year closed at the end of September (down -9.3 % from the previous year).
Once again, the demographic trend had a noticeable impact on the apprenticeship market in 2011. The number of lower and intermediate secondary school leavers - the main clientele for dual-system initial vocational training - fell by 19,700 from the year before to a figure of 549,100 which is already around 165,000 lower than seven years ago. The double cohorts of upper secondary school leavers in Bavaria and Lower Saxony and the suspension of military and civilian national service only led to a slight increase in demand in 2011.
Regional imbalances in apprenticeship markets present a growing challenge. Often applicants do not live in places where there are sufficient apprenticeship places, and vice versa. The regions with a surplus of apprenticeship vacancies and a shortage of applicants include the Employment Agency district of Stralsund, influenced by Baltic tourism (120 vacancies per 100 applicants) and the districts of Annaberg (110 vacancies), Rostock (108), Passau, Schwandorf (106 each) and Traunstein (105). In contrast, examples of regions in which there were fewer vacancies than the number of young people seeking apprenticeships include Herford and Helmstedt (both 81 vacancies per 100 applicants), Solingen, Bremerhaven and Recklinghausen (82 each).
On top of regional differences, once again there were also considerable occupational imbal-ances. Young people interested in occupations such as "Animal keeper" (54 apprenticeship vacancies per 100 applicants), "Visual marketing designer" (62 per 100) or "Media designer for images and sound" (63 per 100) were often unable to fulfil their wishes. In contrast, many apprenticeship places for the occupations of "Restaurant specialist" (124 vacancies per 100 applicants), "Professional caterer" (121 per 100) and "Salesperson specialising in foodstuffs" (113 per 100) were left unfilled. According to analyses by BIBB, various factors contributed to these imbalances - among them, the social prestige (or otherwise) imputed to particular oc-cupations by young people, unfavourable training conditions in the firm, and the recurrent complaint that young people are not fully equipped to succeed in initial vocational training.
"To be able to exploit all potential to ensure the supply of newly skilled workers, companies must keep up a high level of apprenticeship marketing," said the President of BIBB, Frie-drich Hubert Esser. "This includes high quality initial vocational training, attractive frame-work conditions, and outreach to young people at an early stage." Furthermore, he continued, the aim must be to establish systematic vocational orientation and career-start mentoring on a nationwide basis.
Statistics on the situation in the apprenticeship-place market in 2011 can be found on the BIBB website at www.bibb.de/naa309 (in German).
The following German-language online publication by BIBB contains differentiated analyses of trends in the apprenticeship market in 2011: "Die Entwicklung des Ausbildungsmarktes im Jahr 2011: Verbesserte Ausbildungschancen für Jugendliche, zunehmende Rekrutierung-sprobleme für Betriebe" ("Development of the apprenticeship market in 2011: Increasing training opportunities for youths, growing recruitment problems for enterprises"); see www.bibb.de
A report on imbalances in the apprenticeship-place market can be found in issue 6/2011 of the German-language BIBB journal "Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft und Praxis - BWP" (Vo-cational Training in Research and Practice). Issue 03/2009 of BWP also contains an article on how the prestige of particular occupations influences young people's interest in initial vo-cational training. Further information at
http://www.bwp.de
Contact:
Dr. Joachim Gerd Ulrich, e-mail: ulrich@bibb.de
Dr. Elisabeth M. Krekel, e-mail: krekel@bibb.de
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