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55/ 2011
Bonn, 20.12.2011
The training opportunities of young migrants: Major variations depending on country of origin
Young people from families with a history of migration have far greater difficulty in finding an apprenticeship placement than non-migrant youths; that much is well known. But as a recent analysis by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) shows, even within the group of young migrants as a whole there are also major variations depending on their region of origin. Young people from families originating from Turkey or Arabian countries, in particular, have distinctly greater difficulty in finding an apprenticeship place than young people from other regions of origin - even with the same school-leaving qualifications. The results of the BIBB study are published in the current edition of BIBB REPORT, Issue 16/11.
The BIBB study is based on a survey of young people who had attained apprenticeship-entry maturity and were registered with the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA) as applicants for an apprenticeship place (BA/BIBB Applicant Survey 2010). It shows that applicants with a Turkish/Arabian background gain no discernable benefit from holding an intermediate school-leaving certificate. Their 20% transition rates into company-based apprenticeships are just as low as those of applicants whose highest qualification is a lower secondary school-leaving certificate. Even if these young people obtain a higher education entrance qualification, their prospects of placement remain poor (26%). This is not the case for applicants of Southern European origin: whilst comparatively few of those with a lower secondary school-leaving certificate succeed in making the transition (22%), the likelihood of success rises considerably for those with an intermediate school-leaving certificate (40%). If they hold a higher education entrance qualification, the placement rate of 59% is actually the highest out of all the groups compared - including young people from non-migrant backgrounds.
Registered applicants of Southern European origin most frequently (48%) have no higher qualification than a lower secondary school-leaving certificate; this frequency is 45% for young people of Turkish/Arabian origin and 43% for Eastern Europeans, as opposed to just 33% for those from non-migrant backgrounds. Applicants with Turkish/Arabian backgrounds relatively often have an intermediate school-leaving certificate (45%) but only rarely hold a higher education entrance qualification (7%). For those from Southern European origins the corresponding percentages are 38% and 10%, and for Eastern European origins 42% and 13% (non-migrant backgrounds 51% and 14%).
Young migrants are also invited for interview less frequently during their search for an apprenticeship place. While more than three-fifths of applicants from non-migrant backgrounds obtain personal interviews in companies, this is true of only half of young migrants. In the case of young people from Turkish/Arabian backgrounds, the share is even lower (46%).
In view of such statistics, the President of BIBB Friedrich Hubert Esser sees a need for further research: "BIBB will therefore carry out a more nuanced study of companies' selection processes for filling apprenticeship places." Esser advocates ramping up the provision of vocational orientation and work experience to young people from migrant backgrounds in particular, so as to give them an inside view of companies and to lay the best foundations for the recruitment of trainee staff by companies. In this way, both sides - companies and young people - would have the opportunity to get to know and appreciate one another. "Because in the end, we must give everyone a fair chance at initial vocational training. Only then can our fellow citizens become truly integrated."
It was also found that up to the end of 2010 only 28% of applicants from families with a history of immigration made a successful transition into a company-based apprenticeship, compared with 42% of those from non-migrant backgrounds. Whereas those from Eastern or Southern European origins somewhat more frequently succeed in starting an apprenticeship in a company (34% and 33% respectively), this is the case for only 20% of those from a Turkish/Arabian background.
Applicants who failed to find an apprenticeship in a company moved on to a variety of alternative options at the end of 2010. A small proportion take extra-company or school-based initial vocational training or a degree course (migrant backgrounds: 13%, non-migrants: 15%). The remaining applicants either carry on at school, attend a vocational course towards a partial vocational qualification, take casual work or are unemployed. This is more frequently the outcome for young migrants than for non-migrants (55% as opposed to 40%).
For these reasons, applicants with migrant backgrounds find their current situation less satisfactory overall than those with non-migrant backgrounds. It is less common for their destination after school to be "what they wanted" or "an option they considered" (48% as opposed to 60%). They more commonly rate their situation as a "stopgap solution" or a "dead end" (21% as opposed to 16%). This applies to up to a quarter of young people of Turkish/Arabian origin.
Background:
Of the 552,000 applicants registered with the Federal Employment Agency (BA) in the reporting year 2009/2010, 26% are from migrant backgrounds. One-third of these (36%) come from Eastern European and CIS countries. In most cases either they themselves or their families have moved to Germany since the end of the 1980s as ethnic German repatriates. The share from a Turkish or Arabian background (35%) is almost of equal size, the majority originating from Turkey. For the most part they are descendants of Turkish "guest workers" who migrated to Germany from the 1960s until the early 1970s. The group of applicants from Southern European backgrounds is around half that size (18%). They, too, often belong to families of former foreign workers. The remaining applicants (12%) have migrated to Germany from other countries and regions.
The BIBB analysis on the basis of the Applicant Survey does not include the approximately 292,000 young people who succeeded in concluding a dual-system apprenticeship contract in the recruitment year 2009/2010 without the help of the BA, nor the young people whom the BA categorised as "lacking the requisite maturity for an apprenticeship".
The current edition of BIBB REPORT, Issue 16/11, is available to be downloaded from www.bibb.de/bibbreport , where you will also find corresponding statistical material presented in graphic form and of print-ready quality.
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