German youths turning away from apprenticeship programs

BERLIN — Tauro is an 800-seat eatery that caters to Berlin’s affluent Prenzlauer Berg district, and when the evening crush starts, owner Gerd Spitzer needs all hands on deck — including the apprentices he’s relieved to have found after receiving no suitable applicants last year.

Getting them was no easy task. After announcing vacancies through government job centers, he placed ads in papers and websites, almost to no avail.

“We said we’ve got to try something else; we’ll double the apprentice salaries,” he said. “That worked. We’ve been able to hire 26 young people.”

Spitzer is among a growing number of entrepreneurs in Germany resorting to such drastic measures because each year fewer young people sign up for apprenticeships, typically three-year programs for 16-year-olds who want to learn a trade rather than go on to higher education.

Once these programs were regarded as a respectable start into working life for those leaving school and a fundamental pillar of Germany’s diversified economy. The German system has also been praised abroad because of its emphasis on both theoretical and practical training, with apprentices often taking one week off each month to attend school.

However, recent figures showed almost 120,000 vacant apprenticeships in Germany. That’s about 14,500 more unfilled places than 2013, the sharpest yearly increase in recent history.

The problem is partly caused by Germany’s strong economy and low birthrate, resulting in demand for new apprentices outstripping the number who enter the workforce each year. This has kept Germany’s youth unemployment enviably low at a time when other European countries are struggling to create jobs. Some 4 percent of young Germans are without work, compared with 20.8 percent in Spain and a European Union average of 9.8 percent.

Germany’s strong labor market also has compounded a long-term trend for students to continue their educations at universities in the hope of earning a higher salary.

The number of Germans enrolled in universities topped 2.2 million in 2012, about twice the number 30 years earlier. Meanwhile, the number of people in voca- tional training dropped to around 1.4 million in 2012 compared with 1.7 million in 1980.

The problem is particularly acute in professions that are physically demanding or seen as low status. These include skilled manufacturing jobs, plumbers, butchers and cooks, where first-year apprentices can receive as little as $620 a month.

The idea of doubling starting salaries met with skepticism from the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts, a lobby group that represents about 1 million mostly small and medium businesses.

“I don’t think it’s a good thing that employers are competing against each other with presents,” German Confederation of Skilled Crafts General- secretary Holger Schwannecke said. The concern is that wages could get stuck at a high level, hurting the companies in the long term.

He also dismissed the idea that Germany might try to plug the gap by importing apprentices from other European countries, where unemployment is rampant. Both the lack of language skills and the young age at which apprenticeships start have proved to be a hurdle.