If companies are unable to fill all their training places, they tend to hire young people with only a basic school leaving certificate. Nevertheless, the data shows that young people with a high school diploma and those with only a basic school leaving certificate are not necessarily in competition with each other.
BIBB study shows: Companies that cannot fill all their training places tend to hire young people with only a basic school leaving certificate
Companies often set minimum requirements for the school qualifications of new trainees. This contributes to young people with only a basic school leaving certificate (formerly: secondary school leaving certificate) having difficulty finding training places. In a study recently published in the renowned International Journal of Manpower, Anett Friedrich, a research assistant at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), examines the relationship between the school qualifications of new trainees and the characteristics of the companies providing training.
Her findings show that companies relax their school leaving requirements for apprenticeship seekers, especially when they have difficulty recruiting trainees. The proportion of newly hired trainees with only a school leaving certificate is significantly higher in companies that are unable to fill apprenticeship positions.
‘This finding is encouraging because it shows that companies react flexibly when they cannot find enough well-qualified school leavers,’ says Prof. Dr. Hubert Ertl, Research Director and Deputy President of the BIBB. “The fact that companies are making concessions on school qualifications is crucial, not least because of the ongoing shortage of skilled workers in Germany. After all, integrating young people with only a basic school leaving certificate is an important long-term task for the vocational training system.”
Companies with more highly qualified staff prefer trainees with a high school diploma
The study also shows that the qualification structure of companies is a key factor in hiring decisions: companies hire more trainees with a high school diploma if their workforce is more highly qualified overall. However, the study also shows that the number of applicants with a high school diploma plays a role. Surprisingly, companies with a higher proportion of applicants with a high school diploma also hire more trainees with only a basic school leaving certificate. ‘Apprenticeship seekers with a high school diploma and those with only a secondary school leaving certificate are therefore not necessarily in competition with each other,’ says study author Friedrich. For future studies, it will now be interesting to see whether recruitment decisions regarding school qualifications differ between sectors and whether regional differences can be identified.
For the study ‘School-leaving certificates and vocational education and training – the role of firms as gatekeepers in Germany,’ Anett Friedrich calculated fixed-effect regressions based on the representative BIBB company panel on qualification and skills development (BIBB Qualification Panel) with a total of 2,004 training companies in Germany. This approach allows causal conclusions to be drawn about the influence of company characteristics on the hiring of trainees with at most a first school leaving certificate and those with a high school diploma. Panel data from 2013 to 2018, i.e. before the coronavirus pandemic, was evaluated for the study in order to exclude the strong effects of the pandemic on the training market.
About the study:
