Apprentice Story

My son (German in nature) brought up this story of his yesterday.  He's a kitchen-salesman, and the company had asked him to review this young gal (probably around age 17) for an apprentice-type training program.  So he had this chat with the young gal.  She seemed eager and receptive.  He explains the profession....which involves a fair amount of numbers, percentages, and figuring square meters, etc.  Simple math in his opinion.

This young gal seemed a bit confused and after a minute or two....she finally admits that she's totally lost on math (of any type).  I stopped him at this point.....asking, you mean she can't do simple percentages or square meters....even though she's finished up the tenth year of some German school program?  Yes.....he grinned in admitting this.  I responded....you can't let her into the program like this.  Oh, he disagreed....saying that she'd have to brush up on simple math skills.  So I asked.....how you go make it through a German school without simple percentage-math skills?  There was no answer.

This morning, I was glancing over NDR (a public TV network in the north of Germany) and they had this related story.

In this case, here's a guy who had three apprentice positions opened for 2018.  In the end.....he could only fill two of them.  Oh, the guy admitted, he had plenty of applications....but after you 'filter' them out.....you are left with two qualified (meaning basic skills) to fill the three slots.  The profession or skill here?  House painter.  Yes....another job which absolutely requires math skills and the ability to figure square meters.

NDR goes on to tell the rest of the story.....with numerous apprentice positions being empty in NW Germany.  NDR asked the regional statistics folks about this, and they admit 7,100 apprentice positions are empty for the upcoming season (13-percent more than 2017).

In the area of Kiel?  They figure 3,500 slots are empty.  In Lubeck?  Near 100 slots empty.  They even point out the skillcraft areas.....heating engineers, electro-mechatronics or bakers.  I looked over the list.....all are jobs which require strong math skills.

Some suggestions go to the idea that kids are trying to aim more for university slots, than apprentice slots.

Long-term problem?  If you went for five years straight.....where you had thousands of apprentice slots empty each year....you'd start to notice a major problem down the line as older folks retired.