Berlin Last year, the wages of trainees rose by just 2.5 percent, similar to the first Corona year. The plus was thus again significantly lower than in the years before the pandemic.
Because between 2012 and 2019 increases of well over three percent were recorded, in 2018/19 even four percent, reports the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB). The reason given by the BIBB is that many collective bargaining negotiations were postponed during the pandemic or were more focused on securing jobs.
If you look closely, even the plus of 2.5 percent presents a beautiful picture: because the number of new apprenticeship contracts collapsed sharply in 2020, the salaries of trainees from the second to fourth years of training drove the average upwards.
As of October 1, 2021, the average gross salary for apprentices nationwide was 987 euros per month. The east-west difference was only 24 euros.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
In 2020, the number of new contracts had slipped by 58,000 to a record low of only 467,000. The cause was a decline in both the number of places offered and the number of applicants.
In addition, there are growing problems in bringing companies and suitable trainees together. In 2021, the number of new contracts could only be increased very little. The number of vacant training positions reached a new record level of 63,200 places.
Despite Corona, the economy is already short of hundreds of thousands of skilled workers. The shortage is exacerbated by the decline in training.
According to the latest MINT report by the Institute of German Business, there is currently a shortage of 276,900 skilled workers in the technical and scientific professions, which are also crucial for the future fields of decarbonization and digitization – and thus more than before Corona. The majority of them, around 130,000 people, are dual-trained specialists; there is also a lack of around 100,000 academics.
Salaries from 1251 to 650 euros
The range in the remuneration of the apprentices is enormous: The top earners are the carpenters with EUR 1251 a month across all age groups, closely followed by bricklayers, road builders, but also bankers and insurance clerks. Overall, around half of the trainees in companies bound by collective bargaining agreements received more than 1,000 euros, and seven percent even more than 1,200 euros.
For 16 percent of the trainees, however, the tariff remuneration was below 800 euros. This applies to 22 professions, especially in the craft sector: carpenters and carpenters receive 786 euros, glaziers 777 euros, bakers 744 euros and hairdressers 650 euros.
Obviously, the new minimum remuneration for trainees has not given a boost either. This was introduced by the old coalition in 2020 in cooperation with the private sector in order to make dual training more attractive again.
However, the minimum wages for trainees do not apply if the relevant collective wage is lower. According to the BIBB, around one percent of trainees who trained in a company subject to collective bargaining received less than the minimum wage in 2021. This is very little overall, “but affects almost half of the trainees in the hairdressing profession, for example,” write the BIBB experts.
According to the law, the minimum wage in the first year of apprenticeship for 2022 is 585 euros. In the second year there is a premium of 18 percent, in the third of 35 and in the fourth of 40 percent.
More: How Germany wastes the tech potential of migrant children