Apprenticeship anyone?

German Education Minister Annette Schavan on Wednesday presented to parliament a government manifesto addressing the declining employability of the country's high school leavers. It comes amid concerns that many young Germans lack the skills to enter the workforce.

The report says too many German teenagers are under-qualified to work professionally, and that one in five don't stick out their apprenticeship.

Schavan told parliament that the government would spend 755 million euros ($995 million) to address the issue and ensure secondary school students at risk of falling behind received early vocational guidance from seventh grade until they left school. She said this would include a program to put students in contact with occupational training firms.

"We will promote the potential of these young people," she said, adding that more than 3,000 so-called "profession pilots" would be hired to advise young Germans about their post-school options. One-third of these would be volunteers, she said, with the rest to be employed full time.

The report said that, each year, as many as 80,000 German students leave school without graduation certificates. It also said the number of apprenticeships being taken up in the country in 2009 dropped by around 8.2 percent to 566,000. This year, a further decline of around 20,000 is expected.

These revelations come at a time when the number of children going to school is also dropping as a result of a decreasing birth rate in Germany.

Apprenticeship anyone?

In recent years Germany has been plagued by a scarcity of apprenticeship positions, but now the problem has reversed and businesses are facing a huge drop-off in apprentice numbers.

Small business owner Katharina Domhardt, who runs a hair salon in Berlin, says finding school-leavers fit to work in her shop is becoming difficult.

"We really need apprentices, but there is a constant stream of rather unsatisfactory applicants," she told Deutsche Welle. "For every 20, I'd be lucky to get one who creates a good impression, or maybe has good grades in their final secondary-school examinations. That would at least let me know that this person has had a decent general education."

This phenomenon has led to fears of a severe deterioration in Germany's ability to field a professional, young workforce, says Holger Schwannecke, secretary-general of the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts.

"In 2009 we had between 9,000 and 10,000 open apprenticeship positions, positions we were unable to fill," he says. "This has demographic reasons, but is also because of a lack of mobility of individuals. This is a result of lacking education and competence."

New rules

Even large corporations, which until recently had no difficulty filling much-sought-after positions, are having to rethink their strategies for attracting the best young professionals from a shrinking pool.

This is a dilemma faced by German solar energy company Solon, which is among the largest firms of its type in Europe. Headquartered in Berlin, Solon has taken to training its own managers, industrial mechanics and engineers.

"The battle for the best has really begun. For us this means we have to start our selection process much earlier," says Constanze Westermann, who is responsible for recruitment at Solon. "Sometimes this also means putting potential employees through an internship first so we can gauge their suitability for the job."

The German government has taken steps to remedy this situation with a series of programs aimed at enticing unqualified young people, or those unable to find apprenticeships, into taking up vocational training.

Saying 'please' and 'thank you'

But a more complex task is educating such young people about professional etiquette and good manners. Katharina Schumann heads the education department at the Berlin Chamber of Skilled Crafts, which runs programs in manners training for youngsters. She says the courses require students to rethink how they conduct themselves as individuals.

"Here youngsters learn that they should say 'good morning' and 'goodbye.' That one should try to be articulate when speaking and not chew gum, for example," she says. "Our trainees also learn that they have to leave their workplaces in a clean state. They should know that they have to appear in a good light because they are a signboard for their company."

Schumann adds that there is light at the end of the tunnel for many under-qualified school leavers.

"When these youngsters were at school, they were in a protected space, and then they suddenly find themselves in the professional world … they're no longer able to simply doze off," she says. "But you wouldn't recognize many of these young people one year later … from being children, they very suddenly become adults."

Author: Darren Mara

Editor: Rob Turner