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44/ 2012
Bonn, 13.12.2012
Recovery of the apprenticeship-place market begins to stall
The positive trend of recent years in the German apprenticeship-place market began to stall in 2012. That is the result of statistical analyses by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) published for Thursday's meeting of the Board of BIBB in Bonn. The figures are based on the BIBB survey of newly concluded apprenticeship contracts, reported as of 30 September, and the apprenticeship-market statistics of the Federal Employment Agency (BA).
According to these sources, the supply of apprenticeship places fell by 14,500 (-2.4%) in relation to the previous year, to around 584,500. Essentially the causes of this are the waning economic outlook over the course of the year, the lower supply of company-based apprenticeship places (-10,000 or -1.8 %), and the reduction in non-workplace-based training places (-4,600 or -15.0 %).
This was a year in which the demand for apprenticeship places also declined in volume relative to the year before, falling by around 14,200 persons (-2.2%) to a total of 627,300. This decline can be attributed substantially to the demographic trend.
Since the falling supply of apprenticeships was accompanied by falling demand, young people's training prospects have remained almost unchanged overall. Whereas in 2011 there were 93.4 apprenticeship places on offer per 100 applicants in purely arithmetical terms, the equivalent figure this year was 93.2. Considering offers of company-based apprenticeships only, the supply-demand ratio actually improved by 0.5 percentage points to 89.1.
Because falling supply was coupled with falling demand, only 551,300 new training contracts were concluded in the whole of Germany this year, which means 18,100 (-3.2%) fewer contracts. Since German reunification, 2005 was the only other year that the number of new apprenticeship contracts was so low. Part of the reason is that it became distinctly more difficult to match the apprenticeship places offered by companies to young people's training preferences, both regionally and in terms of their choice of occupation.
Thus the number of unfilled positions rose by 3,600 (+12.1%) to 33,300 regardless of the overall contraction in the supply of apprenticeship places. The ratio of training places that could not be filled rose to 5.7% nationally. Such a high figure was last recorded in 1996. The skilled crafts found it particularly difficult to attract applicants: 10,500 apprenticeship places went unused in that sector, as opposed to only 4,700 three years previously. The proportion of skilled-craft apprenticeship places offered but not filled in 2012 was 6.6% for Germany as a whole, rising to 8.1% in eastern Germany.
A rise was also recorded in the number of applicants still seeking a training place on the reporting date. 76,000 people (+3,900 or +5.4 %) come into this category, including 15,700 young people with an offer of alternative training or employment and 60,400 young people without.
When it comes to securing the supply of junior skilled staff, the negative demographic trend and the problems of matching supply and demand will pose the greatest challenges of the next few years. On the other hand, the five-year trend for falling school-leaver numbers will be interrupted briefly in 2013. Among other reasons, this is due to double cohorts leaving upper secondary education in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse. From 2014 school-leaver numbers will then continue on their downward trend. Essentially this will affect western Germany, while in eastern Germany, after major declines in past years, the number of young people completing their schooling has now restabilised and will persist at its current low level for the immediate future.
A differentiated analysis can be found in BIBB's online publication "Die Entwicklung des Ausbildungsmarktes im Jahr 2012" (Trends in the apprenticeship-place market in 2012) at www.bibb.de/ausbildungsmarkt2012 (in German)
Statistics and tables are on the BIBB website at www.bibb.de/naa-2012 (in German)
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