Germany’s young people shun training foundation of SME economy

When German companies opened their doors for business at the start of this month, Thomas Rudolph was one of many managers watching the entrance nervously.

This was the day when this year’s batch of trainees — Auszubildende in German, or Azubi — were due to make their start in the workplace. But the once sought-after training places, with a job and secure income all but guaranteed at the end of three years, are no longer in demand.

Rudolph, personnel manager with Berlin company Pinguin, had 10 trainee places to fill but only one person had said he would show up on September 1st. Working for the thriving Berlin offset printer with 240 employees, Pinguin’s new trainee would divide his time between on-site work in the company’s design and production facility and a local training college for the printing trade.

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“Our dual training system is really cutting edge, what we don’t need here are just theory people,” said Rudolph. “I had applicants who wanted to do design but are taken aback by our production facility and don’t want anything physical.”

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The idea of mixing theory and practice is the foundation of the dual training system for Germany’s Mittelstand or SMEs, which, in turn, make up the backbone of Europe’s largest economy. For years, though, cracks have been spreading through the system.

A decade ago, one in five firms reported problems filling all their available trainee places. Now that quota has jumped to 47 per cent, roughly 30,000 firms. Of them, 37 per cent reported receiving not a single application last year in a survey carried out by the German chambers of industry and commerce (DIHK). It flagged how the situation is much worse in some sectors: 62 per cent in the gastronomy trade cannot fill all their places.

Within the complex causes, several factors leap out. Most firms are feeling the long tail of the pandemic: shuttered schools left them unable to get into classrooms and reach students for summer jobs or placements.

Others say they are now feeling the demographic squeeze, with fewer younger people to replace baby boomer retirees. A final reason, familiar to Irish ears, is the growing trend for university education.

In 2021 there were 10 university students for every four trainees; in 1950 there were 10 students for every 76 trainees. Young Germans who start a dual training scheme are not guaranteed to get to the end, with premature drop-out rates in some fields running as high as 24 per cent.

Off the record, managers have many dark theories and anecdotal evidence of what they think is going on. Some speak of a generation of work-shy snowflakes, products of helicopter parenting. But others see young people as smart, early responders to emerging workplace trends made painfully clear in the pandemic.

“Few young people see a future career in gastronomy because companies view them as a cheap, disposable labour,” said Ralf Lissek, chief executive of the German-Irish chamber of industry and commerce (IHK) in Dublin.

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For years, Lissek has lobbied successive Irish governments to adopt and adapt the German dual system for local needs. Considerable progress has been made, he said, particularly under the watch of Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris. So does Lissek see a certain irony in how Germany’s dual-training export is now struggling in its home market?

“There are still a lot of people going into the training system,” he said. “But it’s still too focused on classic trades like painters and plumbers with not enough focus on today’s growth sectors such as IT and medical technology.”

That is cold comfort for a civil engineering company such as Frisch & Faust. On paper, the Berlin firm with 170 employees has done everything right. It engages regularly with schools, local job centres and trade organisations. Its 25 trainees divide their time between trade schools and on-site learning and, on top of their training, they take home €900 a month.

But of its 19 training places to fill this year eight are still empty, according to general and commercial manager Dieter Mießen.

“We try to motivate young people to see how, on a building site, you can see the result of your work at the end of the day, and then match that with financial incentives,” he said.

In recent years, though, he sees increasingly skewed skills perceptions among school-leavers. “We have young people who would prefer to be managers, and whose parents push them down the academic route,” he said. “But they simply don’t have the skills in German, English or Maths.”

Facing yawning gaps in their trainee schemes, many German firms have taken to social media, commissioning influencers on TikTok to push their positions. Others are offering additional sweeteners, from free cars to gym membership.

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For now, Rudolph insists his printing firm Pinguin won’t be going down that route.

“Talking to other firms we hear that sweeteners just create an endless spiral of expectations and costs,” he said.

Everyone with trainee gaps knows the clock is ticking, as each successive year raises the risk of expert skills not being passed on by a growing number of retirees. For now, though, Dieter Mießen and Thomas Rudolph say they can get by. No one knows, though, for how long.

“We are growing, not shrinking, and will adapt our existing shift system to make it work,” said Rudolph. “We can only hope that, eventually, the young people will find their way to us.”