Berlin With a wide-ranging campaign, the IG BCE union wants to get employers to train more young people again. Employers would have to stop the trend of declining trainee numbers and thus secure the future of the industries.
“Companies must finally do something about the training misery,” said IG-BCE board member Francesco Grioli in advance of the Handelsblatt. He warns: “Otherwise the shortage of skilled workers will reach such a level in the medium term that industrial companies will move abroad.”
Grioli criticizes that many corporations continue to operate a “selection of elites”, although the shortage of workers is already noticeable. Secondary school students in particular are often “sorted out by the HR department’s AI when they apply – we can no longer afford that. The industrial managers must finally get off their high horse,” demands the union official. Large companies in particular would have to train more beyond their own needs.
With the campaign “Specialists don’t just fall out of the sky – no future without training”, the trade union wants to use the works councils to get as many company agreements for more apprenticeships as possible concluded in the companies.
The background to this is the importance of dual training, which has been declining for years. Due to the corona pandemic, the number of newly concluded training contracts fell even further. In 2022, almost 469,000 people nationwide started an apprenticeship, in 2011 there were around 100,000 more.
Fewer and fewer companies are training
Also, fewer and fewer companies are still training at all: the proportion fell further to 19.1 percent in 2021, not even one in five. In 2009, almost every fourth company was still training. This is shown by the Federal Government’s new vocational training report, which is available to the Handelsblatt.
According to IG BCE, the chemical industry also only has a very low training rate of 4.3 trainees per 100 employees. And that despite gloomy prospects: “In the very near future, due to demographic factors, about as many people will retire from working life in the industry every year – 25,000 to 30,000 – as we currently have trainees across all age groups,” explains a union spokesman.
Employers always point out the declining number of applicants. The IG BCE does not deny that fewer and fewer students have left school in recent years. The young people who fall through the cracks because they can’t find an apprenticeship should be addressed all the more specifically. Because although tens of thousands of apprenticeship positions in the companies have recently remained vacant, in 2022 there were again 240,000 young people who got stuck in the courses of the transitional system after school. There they can catch up on what they have missed, but they cannot do any training. They often don’t find an apprenticeship afterwards either.
The result is more and more people between the ages of 20 and 35 who are unskilled: according to the 2021 vocational training report, their number rose to 2.64 million.
>> Read also: The number of young unskilled workers climbs to a new record
School leavers with the stamp “not ready for training” from the Federal Employment Agency (BA) are often put on hold and given additional preparatory courses instead of being placed in training. Grioli is calling for the concept of a lack of maturity from the days of the flood of apprentices to be finally abolished. In view of the lack of skilled workers, no one should be left unconsidered. “In the future, companies will have to invest more heart, know-how and money in the further development of young people.”
The trade unionist calls on companies to train unskilled young people more.
(Photo: IG BCE)
The trade unionist refers, for example, to the “Start in denberuf” project of the chemical collective bargaining partners. “In 20 years, we have trained more than 5,600 underperforming young people in courses: almost 90 percent were then able to start a normal apprenticeship,” reports Grioli.
Example Continental: The unskilled become experts
There is also progress in other sectors: together with the automotive supplier Continental, IGBCE and IG Metall have founded a training institute. Unskilled workers can also acquire qualifications there and catch up on a degree. “This shows that unskilled workers of all ages can very well be qualified to become specialists,” says Grioli. Since the start of 2019, 8,500 unskilled workers have obtained a vocational qualification from ongoing work – the oldest graduate was 58 years old.
The economy is critical of the move to say goodbye to the concept of “training maturity”. Nevertheless, the employers are thoughtful. In the future, too, it will have to be made clear which prerequisites the apprenticeship needs, for example in the case of handicrafts. It also makes sense to give young people better support when choosing a possible career.
The Vice General Manager of the DIHK, Achim Dercks, is thinking of “starting training competence”, for which digital skills, but also problem-solving skills and creativity could be given more consideration than just the certificates. That could help bring potential trainees and companies together better.
In addition, trade unionist Grioli calls for “finally giving applicants with a migration background the same opportunities. We need them, and the potential is enormous.” Studies by the Federal Institute for Vocational Training also show that there are still reservations about migrants.
At least in the skilled trades, where 27 percent of all companies still provide training, “everyone is welcome,” says Jörg Dittrich, president of the skilled trades. Therefore, a disproportionately large number of young refugees are being trained.
More: In the IT professions of all things, there are far too few apprenticeships