Union contests apprenticeship figures

The German Trade Union Confederation has disputed industry’s claims that there is a lack of suitable candidates for apprenticeships in the country.

In a report published on 3 November, the confederation examined why industry bosses have been complaining about unfilled apprenticeships at the same time as “hundreds of thousands of young people” have been forced to settle for alternative methods of vocational training.

It concluded that the 2016 statistics published by the Federal Employment Agency at the end of September, which put the number of unfilled apprenticeships at 43,500 and the number of failed applicants at 20,000, were inaccurate. The official number of failed applicants was low because many were simply put into other categories, the confederation said.