Apprenticeship training or external recruitment of skilled workers – what costs should firms expect?
Results of the 2022/2023 BIBB Cost-Benefit Survey
Wenzelmann, Felix ; Schönfeld, Gudrun ; Linckh, Carolin ; Pfeifer, Harald
Abstract
The shortage of skilled workers remains one of the dominant issues on the labour market. One way to counter this shortage at the firm level is to invest in apprenticeship training in one of more than 320 dual training occupations. This report uses the 2022/2023 BIBB Cost-Benefit Survey to show how high these investments are, what benefits they bring for firms, and what the alternative of recruiting skilled workers from the external labour market costs. Based on information from over 3,000 firms providing training and over 1,000 firms not providing training, the study presents gross costs, benefits of apprentices’ productive contributions and net costs of apprenticeship training, recruitment costs for skilled workers, and other key figures. The results are shown for Germany as a whole and in disaggregated form by firm size, training sector and region. Developments over the last 15 years are also analysed.
Product details
- Editor
- Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung
- Publisher
- Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)
- Appeared
- 2026
- Issue number
- 2
- Downloads
- 14
- License
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Series
- BIBB Report
- ISSN
- 1869-2761
- Languages
- English / German