I sat and watched a business report via N-TV today (German commercial news), and it's a curious piece.
Every year, back in the spring typically....business operations release 'billets' for apprentice positions. Kids apply, and they get accepted.
So right now (deep into November), the numbers are added up. From all the billets that existed.....forty-percent went unfilled for apprentice jobs.
Yeah, it's a lot.
Chief hits? Smaller operations that had 50 employees or less.....and the construction field in general.
Across the nation...at the close of September....it was just over 60,000 empty billets.
Cause? They go to two factors: lack of qualified kids, and just not an abundance of applicants.
Back in the 1990s....I watched a German TV show that sat down with a baker who typically recruited around five apprentices each year. He mandated on his own....a math and general knowledge test.
General knowledge? You had to know who the Chancellor was and qualify a couple of key events (like the Wall coming down), the capital of the state itself, etc. It wasn't rocket science, and I (being the non-German) could have passed this quiz easily.
The kids? From a dozen-odd kids.....only one kid got all the answers right....most were about 50-percent correct.
The math part? Well....a baker has to know a fair amount about formulas. So he'd ask what was a quarter of one hour, or how to add up 5-half hours, or how you added three-quarters of this to one half of that. Again, this was not rocket science. He had again....one single kid who got all the answers right....the rest were either marginally acceptable or failing the math quiz entirely.
The baker's blame? Inadequate school education and passing kids without the basics needed for the job.
If this trend were to continue? Well....yeah, in just three or four years, you'd have a mess laying there, and no sure gimmick to resolve it.
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