According to a report by Isabel Musnera for the Spanish media El Mundo, dual professional training is key.  

Maximilian Markmann is only 18 years old and has already been offered a labour contract at Claas, one of the largest companies in Germany that sells agriculture machinery all around the world. His younger brother is following his steps.

The key is Dual Professional Training. Almost 50% of young Germans are trained under this category, which combines education at school and at a company.  

Large, medium and small German companies trust Dual FP to generate a pool that shall enable them to safely face the future. This model has a long tradition and works almost like a perfect engine. Therefore, it is not a surprise to find out that youth unemployment in Germany is among the lowest in the EU: around 6.6% in 2017, while Spain has a 36.8% youth unemployment rate.

According to the Report on International Youth Employment Promotion Practices, developed by Adecco Group and the Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad, the greatest advantage of the German Dual FP lies on its closeness to the labour market.

“On the one hand, companies have the chance of preparing their future specialized staff taking into account the practical requirements of their activities. And, on the other hand, professionals trained in Dual FP generally have better chances of getting a job in the same company that trained them”, explains the report.

“My grandfather was the first to follow a Dual FP, and, when it was my turn to choose, I had no doubts. You get paid from day one, while you receive thoroughly and updated training”, says 18 years old Markmann, who has just completed his third year of training and has already signed his first labour contract at Claas.

The person responsible for this company’s apprentices, Birgit Claves, says that Dual FP enables “young people to grow, in every sense of the word, by starting to take responsibilities from an early age”, which clearly makes it easier for them to access the labour market, as companies strongly appreciate experience.

The success of the Dual FP in Germany has a lot to do with the constant dialogue between the education system and the labour market, a unusual situation in Spain, and even more exceptional in Latin America.

“There has to be a perfect match between theory and practice for this formula to work”, points out Claves.

The Dual FP does not only limit to manual jobs, it is also developed in the service sector, banking, etc. It offers training in 350 different professions.

In addition, Dual FP is not only for large companies. Small companies also bet on this training to recruit talent. Poggengerd, a company founded in 1972, which produces high precision pieces for the airspace, automotive, and medicine industries, has five apprentices, and is very satisfied with this model as it enables it to “get workers”, says the owner. This mechanical engineer who graduated from university after completing Dual FP, says that working as an apprentice is a great opportunity for any young person. “In my company, apprentices are paid 700 euros per month while studying. And once they graduate, I tend to retain almost all of them. In addition, after two or three years of working for the company, they may earn between 1,800 and 3,000 euros per month”, he explains.

Germany has a business environment that is distributed all over the country. This fact, which sets it apart from other countries where business are located in just a few regions, also makes it easier for young people to be trained and work in their own region, without needing to move away from home.

In order to make sure that SMEs can compete with large companies and are not left without apprentices, the Chambers of Commerce develop fundamental work offering their support during courses to make sure that young people may complete training and specialized courses.

However, despite its broad tradition and success in tackling youth unemployment, Dual FP in Germany also faces major challenges. While there is a very small supply in certain regions, in others you can find a large number of Dual FP positions available that cannot be filled, particularly in industries where work is developed in shifts, weekends, where expectations are hard, etc.

Challenges that are quite different to the ones that Spain and Latin America face.