More flexibility required – on both sides!

Dear Readers,

After the summer holidays, around half a million young people will enter the world of work by commencing vocational education and training. Some will still be seeking a training place at this time, and their chances are not bad at all given the fact that there are still numerous vacancies. The placement activities of the chambers, associations and employment agencies will continue in order to bring together supply and demand.
During this process, it will not be possible to fulfil all preferences. In certain circumstances, young people will need to lower their sights when it comes to choice of occupation or proximity to place of residence. However, companies should also be flexible and give a chance to applicants who do not fully meet their requirements. After all, training lasts for two years and may even be as long as three and a half years. During this time, it should be possible to provide trainees with sufficient support so as to enable them both to pass the examination and become socially integrated into the company. Matching, therefore, is a task and challenge which faces both sides – the young people and the companies.

Career choice as a process

Experience has shown that many training contracts are dissolved during the initial months of training. Young people often experience their confrontation with the realities of life within the companies as a “practical shock”. When they arrive in the firms, their expectations and core values are different to those of previous generations. This is something to which the companies need to adjust. Choice of occupation is also based on a series of individual decisions rather than being concluded via a one-off matching procedure. Vocational orientation, the search for suitable training and advanced training measures and changes of occupation and employer are all parts of a lifelong process of identity and career development. All of those involved in the process (companies, parents and young people) would do well to take this into account when choosing a training place.

Probing the causes of matching problems

We have had times when there have been either too many unplaced young people or a large number of unfilled training places. Over recent years, however, we have observed a new phenomenon. The number of vacant training places is rising whilst at the same time too many school leavers fail to find a training place. The situation varies greatly depending on occupation and region.
The available statistics demonstrate that, despite the fact that numbers of school leavers are falling, there are still many young people who are interested in vocational education and training. Companies and branches which offer good and attractive training still receive sufficient applications so as to be able to select suitable candidates. The state and the employment agencies also have a wide range of measures in place to provide support prior to and during training. In order to obtain a better understanding of why the matching problem has exacerbated in the past few years, more and better information on the causes is needed. Have the requirements of training really risen in such a way so that young people with lower levels of school performance are no longer able to cope with them? Or, in the light of streamlined structures, high customer expectations and a tendency towards zero-error production, are the companies no longer prepared to take the time and trouble to bring the necessary commitment to bear in devoting themselves to the integration of young people? These are the questions to which we need answers!

REINHOLD WEIß
Prof. Dr., Deputy President of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) and Head of Research

Translation from the German original (published in BWP 4/2016): Martin Kelsey, Global Sprach Team, Berlin