“The corona pandemic is clearly affecting the training market, as vacancies are be-ing filled at a much slower rate. I am delighted to see that companies are willing to work through the uncertain situation by continuing to offer training and allowing young people to start an apprenticeship at a later date”, said the Chairman of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), Detlef Scheele, during the presentation of the apprenticeship market report for 2019/20. He also reached out to applicants: “Don’t lose heart, keep applying and open your minds to apprenticeships outside your dream job. And if companies also give an opportunity to candidates who don’t quite match their profile, we can continue to make up for the backlog caused by the pan-demic in the post-placement period”.

From October 2019 to September 2020, a total of 530,300 vocational training jobs were registered with the employment agencies (Agentur für Arbeit) and job centres (Jobcenter) in joint facilities. That’s 41,700 fewer than in the previous year. The vast majority are in-house apprenticeships, which have fallen by 41,500 to 514,600.

Since the start of the vocational year on 1 October 2019, a total of 473,000 appli-cants have used the placement services offered by the employment agencies and job centres when searching for an apprenticeship. That’s 38,800 fewer than in the previous year.

This decrease is not solely due to the economic restrictions introduced to curb the spread of the coronavirus. In March 2020, both the number of applicants and the number of registered apprenticeships were well below the levels recorded in the previous year.

Once again, more in-house apprenticeships were registered over the course of the vocational guidance year compared to the number of applicants. On a national level, there were 92 registered applicants for every 100 registered in-house apprentice-ships. Much fewer vacancies have been filled on the training market as a result of the corona pandemic since April, compounding the imbalances between regions, professions and qualifications that became apparent in the previous year.

As a result of the corona crisis, significantly fewer placements had been found for applicants – and significantly fewer training vacancies had been filled – by the end of September 2020 compared to the same month in the previous year. There were still 59,900 vacant apprenticeships – 6,800 more than in the previous year. Most va-cancies were in sales professions, the food production and distribution industry, and the hotel and restaurant sector.

At the same time, 29,300 applicants had yet to be placed. This leaves 6% of regis-tered applicants without an apprenticeship or alternative offer.

216,200 applicants (46%) ended up in vocational training – 33,800 fewer than in the previous year. 17% decided to continue their school education, start an internship or study, and 2% opted for subsidised qualifications, such as vocational preparation courses or entry-level qualifications. Another 7% are now in employment, while 2% are involved in charitable and social work, and 5% registered as unemployed. No information is available for 13% of applicants.

In addition to the unplaced applicants, 48,900 young people had accepted an alter-native by 30 September but still wish to find a form of dual training. This figure is 300 less than in the previous year.

Activities will be resumed for these individuals and those without a placement. Moreover, we will be contacted in the coming weeks by young people who are still looking for an apprenticeship (or a new one) for various reasons; and experience shows that companies will also register new or vacant apprenticeships.