"In the 2021/22 career guidance year, the recruitment market continued to develop. Since the reunification of Germany, it has never been easier to find an apprenticeship, but it has become increasingly difficult for companies to fill vacancies," said Andrea Nahles, Chairwoman of the Federal Employment Agency (BA), at the presentation of figures concerning the 2021/22 career guidance year.
From October 2021 to September 2022, the employment agencies and job centres registered a total of 546,000 vocational training posts, an increase of 23,100 compared with the same period of the previous year. The vast majority of these are company apprenticeships, which have increased by 19,900 to 528,300.
Since the guidance year began on 1 October 2021, a total of 422,400 applicants have made use of the apprenticeship recruitment service. This was a decrease of 11,100 on the previous year.
The continually decreasing number of applications may be due to increasing digitisation, which has resulted in more transparency regarding the apprenticeship vacancies currently on offer.
The overall figures show that in this guidance year, there were more registered company apprenticeships than registered applicants to fill the gap. In terms of figures there were 80 registered applicants for every 100 registered company training posts.
As in the previous years, regional disparities as well as a lack of vocational skills and qualifications severely affected the apprenticeship market, leading to a further increase in the proportion of unfilled training post vacancies.
All in all, 68,900 training posts were still up for grabs on 30 September 2022, an increase of 5,700 compared with the previous year. It was particularly difficult to fill vacancies in the food industry, hotel and catering, construction and ancillary occupations, the heavy goods vehicle sector, and in the metal industry.
At the same time, 22,700 applicants were still without a post, 1,900 fewer than in the previous year. Consequently, five percent of registered applicants were left without a training post or equivalent position.
By the end of September 2022, 198,700 applicants had started a vocational apprenticeship, an equivalent of 47 percent; 900 fewer than in the previous year. Sixteen percent of applicants bridged the gap by staying on at school, doing a job placement or studying, and two percent settled for sponsored qualification such as vocational preparation programmes or initial training schemes. A further eight percent started a job, one percent got involved in charitable social projects, and four percent registered as unemployed. The status of thirteen percent of applicants has not been established.
Apart from the applicants who had not found an apprenticeship, as of 30 September, 37,700 young people proceeded to alternative arrangements, but nevertheless still wish to be placed in dual training. There were 5,500 fewer in this category than in the previous year.
In order to guide these applicants and those who are still without a position into unfilled training posts, mediation programmes will be prolonged until at least the end of the year. Furthermore, experience shows that in the next few weeks, for various reasons, more young people are likely to apply or re-apply for apprenticeships, whereas companies tend to announce new or newly available training vacancies.
Further statistical data focussing on education is available on the Internet at
statistik.arbeitsagentur.de > Themen im Fokus > Bildung.
Further information is available from the Federal Employment Agency's media service.
https://statistik.arbeitsagentur.de/DE/Navigation/Statistiken/Themen-im-Fokus/Bildung/Bildung-Nav.html (available in German)