New government initiative to improve the number of training places

In September 1997, the German Federal Government decided to favour those companies providing adequate numbers of training places when allocating public contracts.

On 9 September 1997, the German Federal Government took the decision to favour those companies which provide sufficient training places when allocating public contracts. In the event that companies submit equal tenders for public contracts those companies which have a sufficient number of apprenticeship places will get the order . The Federal Minister of Education, Science, Research and Technology, Jürgen Rüttgers, expressed his hopes that other regional and local governments will follow that decision. As early as in July 1997, the Bavaria n State Government declared it would favour companies providing training in the allocation of public contracts

It is the basic viewpoint of the Federal Government that every candidate for an apprenticeship should be able to obtain a training place, and that it lies in the responsibility of the employers to provide sufficient training places. The recent governmental initiative on training can therefore be seen as a direct reaction to the current crisis on the apprenticeship market. At the end of July 1997, only three out of four candidates for an apprenticeship found a training place. In August 1997 there were more than 150,000 young people who were still looking for an apprenticeship, while at the same time only about 58,000 unoccupied training places were officially registered by the Federal Employment Service (Bundesanstalt für Arbeit). Even more dramatic is the situation in eastern Germany, where there are about nine candidates for each unoccupied training place. All in all, Germany has not seen so many would-be apprentices looking for non-existent training places in the month of August since the late 1940s. The table below provides further details.