Print version Recommend this page Press release
41/ 2003
Bonn, 05.11.2003
Step up efforts to ensure the future of vocational training!
BIBB conference on the future of vocational training in Germany
"The situation on the training place market is serious: At the close the current fiscal year, Germany's employment offices reported a total of 35,000 young people nationwide for whom a training place could not be found. Add to this another 46,700 young people who had not yet been placed and sought an alternative such as attending school or taking part in a vocational preparation scheme while continuing to seek a training place. Only 15,000 vacancies for training places were available at the time to meet this demand. The various professional associations, chambers of commerce and employment offices are working at full speed to find training places for those applicants who have yet to be placed. I would like to take this opportunity to express my greatest respect for the dedication of those people on the ground who are doing everything possible to mobilize training places that are still vacant or have since become available." With these words, Professor Helmut Pütz, President of the Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BIBB) opened the conference titled Future of Vocational Training in Germany - Empirical Studies and Conclusions which BIBB hosted at the Gustav Stresemann Institute in Bonn on November 4 and 5.
Some 200 experts from professional associations, chambers of commerce and research centres had accepted the Institute's invitation to meet to discuss the difficult situation on the training place market and examine problems and potential solutions from the standpoint of vocational training providers and persons seeking vocational training.
Their conclusion: Germany's dual vocational training system continues to enjoy a high level of acceptance among companies! Not only those firms that offer in-house training but also those who do not provide vocational training are fundamentally convinced of the benefits and advantages of providing in-house training. The following situations, however, give rise to problems:
- Difficult economic conditions: Firms with poor order positions that do not know if they will still be in business three or five years from now can scarcely be persuaded to provide training;
- Economic structural change: Sectors that are traditionally training-friendly are shrinking or are moving segments to other countries while new and growing industries have not yet built up a tradition of providing in-house vocational training.
The experts attending the conference warned against harbouring the false hope that the number of in-house training places on offer would start to grow again - on their own, so to speak - once the economy starts to pick up again. This will not happen. Which is why, according to the experts, firms must be made aware of the fact that a long-term decline in the amount of vocational training being provided presents major risks for the overall economy and could act as a dangerous impediment to growth. For this reason, the experts pointed out, efforts must be made in the individual regions to help those firms in particular that would like to provide in-house training but have never thought themselves capable of doing so. In light of this, the STARegio programme (BIBB Press release No. 40/2003 from October 31, 2003) that the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has developed in conjunction with the Federal Institute for Vocational Training points in precisely the right direction. The experts participating in the conference also underscored the younger generation's strong, unbroken interest in in-company training. Young people are much more intensively involved than previously assumed in trying to obtain a training place in the face of numerous rejections. Up to 40% would apply for a training place more than 100 kilometres from home if there were none available in their immediate vicinity. In 2002, some 45,000 applicants took up a training place outside the district served by their employment office. The area that the Hamburg training place market, for example, draws on extends not only all the way to Western Pomerania and Upper Lusatia but also to Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. In the event that young people are unable to find the kind of training they desire despite all their efforts, they would more or less involuntarily change their plans and opt for an alternative offering (particularly in vocational training schools) or wait patiently in a "holding pattern" (such as vocational preparation schemes). Some 65,000 young people found themselves in this situation in 2002. All of them had submitted written applications for at least 20 training places; in fact, they had submitted an average of 40 applications.
One problem frequently cited by firms - applicants' lack of sufficient education and maturity required for successful vocational training - was also the subject of discussion at the conference. The experts on hand agreed that steps to improve the general education system require a longer period before they have any effect. For this reason, it would be appropriate to expand support measures for the short term.
The Federal Institute for Vocational Training will be publishing the conference findings.
For further German-language information on this subject, please see:
- Jugendliche in Ausbildung bringen - Special issue of the BIBB journal Berufsbildung in Wissenschaft und Praxis (BWP), June 2003. Available free of charge from BIBB by e-mail (bwp@bibb.de) or telephone ( Ms. Leppich, +49 228/107-1723). This report is also available in PDF form on the Internet at: www.bibb.de/de/5757.htm
- Joachim Gerd Ulrich, Ergänzende Hinweise aus der Lehrstellenbewerberbefragung 2002 zur Interpretation der Berufsbildungsstatistik: das Problem der latenten Nachfrage. In: Nutzung und Nutzen des Internets bei der Berufswahl und bei der Lehrstellensuche - Informationen für die Beratungs- und Vermittlungsdienste (ibv), No. 13/03 dated June 25, 2003, pp. 1,775 - 1,784.
Also available for downloading as a PDF file at: www.arbeitsamt.de/hst/services/bsw/ausbverm/veroeffentlichungen/
ausbildungsmarkt/index.html - Joachim Gerd Ulrich, Klaus Troltsch, Stabilisierung des Lehrstellenmarktes unter wirtschaftlich schwierigen Rahmenbedingungen? Aktuelle Analysen der Berufsberatungsstatistik zur Lage auf dem Ausbildungsstellenmarkt, published as Volume 5, 2003 of BIBB's Forschung Spezial series. This publication is available for € 11.20 from W. Bertelsmann Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Postfach 10 06 33, D-33506 Bielefeld, Germany, Tel. + 49 521 / 911 01-11, Fax: + 49 521 / 911 01-19, E-mail: service@wbv.de
