Germany: New alliance for vocational training

A new alliance for vocational and further training has been launched in Germany. The German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) announced its creation on 12 December 2014.

The new alliance breaks with events in the past decade during which employers, ministries, other government institutions and the Federal Employment Agency (BA) had cooperated in the Pact on Apprenticeship, while DGB opposed to the pact and did not participate.

The new alliance, covering the period from 2015 to 2018, now unites all relevant actors under one umbrella.

Alliance partners agreed to:

• strengthen vocational training;
• reduce the number of school leavers without a certificate;
• develop a new statistical system to assess the vocational training market.

More apprenticeship/training positions are to be provided and more companies are being encouraged to train youngsters.

Employers have promised to provide an annual 500,000 internship positions for pupils as well as 20,000 apprenticeship positions, in addition to the positions already registered with the Federal Employment Agency.