Germany: businesses aren’t training enough apprentices, thus contributing to the growing shortage in skilled workforce

German businesses are complaining of a growing shortage in skilled workers, the new “2014 Education Report,” presented on June 13 by the Ministry of Education and the Conference of the Länder’s Ministries of Education and Culture (KMK), sheds new light on the issue.  In many sectors faced with this shortage, including the metal industry, electronics or even health and care, the number of young people searching for an apprenticeship place is higher – and has been for years – than the number of places offered by businesses.  The researchers’ conclusion is that the incriminated shortage is more the result of a problem with supply than with demand.  Other interesting evolution: in 2013, for the first time in the country’s history, the number of young people who started a college education was higher than the number of people starting an apprenticeship.
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More students than apprentices. At a joint press conference on June 13 in Berlin, before her counterparts from the Länder and the researchers working at the German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF), Johanna Wanka, CDU Minister of Education, rejoiced with the conclusions of the new “2014 Education Report” (editor’s note: which describes, every two years, major trends in the German education system). “Recent years’ efforts to modernize the education system are working....

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