Germany is in a training dilemma: companies are offering fewer and fewer training positions, even though there are more people interested in training. The economic crisis is forcing many employers to reduce their offerings, and at the same time, demographic change means they cannot do without promoting young talent.
This has consequences: the number of trainees is falling, as the Federal Statistical Office recently announced. Last year, 461,800 training contracts were concluded. That is 13,300 fewer training contracts than the year before, a decrease of 2.8 percent. This number doesn’t sound exciting at first. In fact, it means that there are as many fewer young people doing vocational training as there are living in a small town like Rothenburg than in the previous year.
Reversal of the trend in training: these are the reasons
In contrast to previous times, the decline in training contracts is not due to the fact that young people are only looking towards university after graduating from school. In fact, the demand for training places is now significantly greater than the supply: According to the Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BIBB), 560,300 school leavers were looking for a training place – that’s 0.7 percent more than in the previous year.
There are two reasons for this development: Firstly, training is becoming more popular again. In view of the emerging epochal consequences that the AI revolution is having, especially on academic professions, the appeal of activities that presumably cannot be digitized away, such as roofing or childcare, is increasing significantly. According to Barbara Wittmann, Linkedin Manager Germany, a survey of 2,000 professionals showed that more than half of those surveyed look at how AI-safe a job is when choosing a career.
Gen Z in particular is looking for crisis-proof alternatives to the classic office job. The Handwerksblatt, for example, exultantly put it: “AI has no hands – skilled trades are future-proof.” In addition, training can also be financially very attractive. A Stepstone evaluation showed that future professions – such as digitalization management clerks or chemical technicians – pay salaries shortly after training that can easily compete with those of university graduates.
The increasing popularity of apprenticeships is one side. On the other hand, due to the economic crisis, the offer has shrunk significantly: a total of only 530,300 training positions were offered in 2025, a decline of 4.6 percent. Training in industry and commerce suffered particularly, and the number of training places in crafts also fell. There is a clear west-east divide – especially in the traditionally strong industrial states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, an above-average number of training positions have been cut, far more than in the eastern German states.
Another figure also shows how times are changing: the number of training positions that companies cannot fill has fallen significantly. 54,400 training positions remained open last year – 21.6 percent fewer than the previous year. On the one hand, this is a consequence of the lower supply – if fewer places are offered, fewer places remain free.
However, it is possible that many young people are now accepting a training position that is not their first choice. In any case, companies are increasingly reporting that they also accept lower-performing candidates if they cannot hire top school graduates with all the desired characteristics.
Nahles: “The development is going in completely the wrong direction”
Fewer training places. Fewer training contracts. Fewer vacancies. Plus more young people who want to do training but can’t find a training place. According to Andrea Nahles, head of the Federal Employment Agency, this trend is worrying: “The development of training places is going in completely the wrong direction and is too short-term.” According to Nahles, there will be a shortage of around seven million skilled workers by 2035. It is therefore essential to continue to train young people despite – or perhaps because of – economic conditions.
But training costs money – and that is no longer so easy for many companies. According to BIBB, the gross costs for a trainee in the 2022/23 training year were 26,200 euros annually, including training fees, costs for trainers, material costs and the like. They estimated the trainees’ benefits at 18,100 euros, and around 70 percent of the training costs would be covered by the income. Since then, training fees have increased significantly. There is currently no new calculation available.
Nevertheless, career researchers say that these costs are still attractive compared to the money that has to be spent on recruiting new skilled workers. But what are solutions to the training dilemma? How can more training positions be created – without overwhelming companies?
Berlin is introducing the training place levy
The undersupply of training places is particularly drastic in the capital. While the national average has around 93 training places for every 100 people seeking training, in Berlin there are currently only 78 places; the ratio is worse in no other federal state. Only one in ten companies still provides training there. Now politicians have drawn conclusions: a few days ago the Berlin House of Representatives decided on a training place levy.
In the future, Berlin companies will have to pay into a fund if their training rate is below the national average of 4.6 percent. The tax applies to all companies with ten or more employees. The money is to be collected in a fund from which additional training positions created in training companies will be financed from 2028. In addition, qualification measures for young people are to be paid for from the fund in order to make them fit for training. The levy is intended to raise 75 million euros.
The Berlin-Brandenburg business associations promptly expressed their concerns about the training place levy – however, in previous years they had not managed to provide 2,000 additional training positions annually on a voluntary basis in order to avert this impending levy. Berlin companies are particularly bothered by the fact that they have to pay the levy even if they cannot find a suitable applicant. The Berlin Chamber of Industry and Commerce has also taken a position against the levy under the motto: “Yes to training. No to the training place levy”.
A similar model was decided in Bremen as early as 2023. The Bremen Administrative Court is expected to decide on the legality of the Bremen Training Support Fund Act in the near future.
Further solutions to promote training
In all disputes over details and specific legal issues, there are some certainties:
- Dual vocational training is important and relevant for the future, especially in the AI age.
- Young people strive for apprenticeships.
- With the baby boomers leaving the workforce in the next few years, companies will need new workers – and those who train them will decide what the future skilled workers will learn and will also bind them to the company.
- Germany needs a well-trained workforce in order to compete globally
Allowing the companies actually providing the training to bear responsibility for training obviously does not work everywhere, as the example of Berlin shows. Smaller companies in particular often cannot cope with the time, organizational and financial effort. Many steps are required to remedy this. Inter-company training centers, such as those that Labor Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) wants to promote more strongly, are one approach. Another relies on cooperation between companies in training; some large companies also use their capacities to support smaller companies with individual training modules. All of this already exists – and it can be expanded.
Christina Petrick-Löhr is responsible for the Talent & Learning magazine section as well as reporting on training and further education. She is also responsible for the editorial planning of various special human resources publications as well as the German Human Resources Prize.
