The Apprentice Story

This got brought up today within ARD (German public TV, Channel One).....the drop-out rate for apprenticeship is going up.

Most German kids around age thirteen and fourteen.....have to start thinking hard about life after basic school, and apprenticeships come up.  At some point, you have to pick a profession.....type up resumes....apply....and eventually do interviews for apprentice positions. 

ARD discusses the fact that the drop-out rate is now around twenty-five percent.    For example....ARD discusses that in 2016....146k training contracts were tossed before completion across Germany.

They even discuss that three professions are heavily affected by this problem: security professionals, hairdressers, and cooks.  The drop-out rate goes near 50-percent.

Why the high rate?  There are differing opinions.  Some suggest that the compensation money for the 'kids' isn't high enough to keep their interest.  Some suggest conflict with the instructor personnel,  while others cite crappy working conditions or faulty job descriptions.  Some experts will even go and suggest that apprentice motivation isn't what it used to be twenty to forty years ago.

The problem here is that you end up with a 16 or 17 year old kid.....who invested six, twelve, or perhaps eighteen months into some training program, and never reached a finished point.  Now....what do you do as a Job-Center with this kid?  More tests?  New direction or focus in life?  Another apprentice deal?  Or do you push them off at age eighteen to the Bundeswehr (German Army)?

My son brought up a friend of his from school who'd spent an entire year in some program and then dropped it....total dissatisfaction with the job area, and then convinced the Job-Center for a new chance as a cook.  Five years ago, the kid wrapped up his training....fully qualified cook.  And recently, the kid got bumped up for a better job up in Hamburg.

The problem I see is that most kids at age fourteen....have no real idea what profession they'd really fit into, and this 1960s-type funnel used to push kids off into a profession....isn't working anymore.

But if you sit and view this.....146k kids who invested six months to a year into wasted training, with nothing to show for it.....it's a developing mess, with no real solution on the horizon.