Berlin, July 27, (dpa/GNA) – German employers are seeing a gradual rise in the number of young people taking up apprenticeships after a period of decline that led to skills shortages in industry, the head of the chambers of industry and commerce (DIHK) said on Tuesday.
“I’m confident that the situation on the apprenticeship market will continue to improve in the summer, but it’s proceeding step by step,” DIHK president Peter Adrian told dpa in Berlin.
He noted, however, that companies were still unable to fill their apprenticeship positions for lack of applicants.
“In the spring we were still recording declines by comparison with 2020, itself a bad coronavirus year,” Adrian said.
But by the end of June, around 147,000 DIHK apprenticeship contracts had been concluded in industry, commerce and services, up 1.4 per cent on the year, he said.
Companies were now able to offer the practical training that was absent during the pandemic, Adrian said.
The Federal Employment Agency (BA) reported at the start of July that 385,000 young people had applied for an apprenticeship thus far this year, down 32,000 on last year and well below the 468,000 positions available.
The government has made funds available to boost apprenticeships, most of which start in August and September.
GNA