The training gap in Germany remains large. Most recently, over 73,000 training places remained unfilled, while at the same time more than 63,000 young people were unable to find an apprenticeship. Around 44 percent of companies were only able to fill their training places partially or not at all in the 2023/24 training year. Nevertheless, one in four young people in Germany believe that there are too few training places. This discrepancy arises because the training offers from companies and the career aspirations of young people in terms of region, profession or qualifications often do not match. As a joint youth and company survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation and the German Economic Institute (IW) now shows, it is also due to communication that applicants and companies do not find each other.
Companies and young people largely agree on the importance of information channels: for both sides, online job advertisements play the most important role, followed by placement through the Federal Employment Agency and social media. However, there are noticeable differences in the use of social networks: Instagram is the most popular in each case, but while 71 percent of companies use Facebook to inform about their apprenticeships, only a quarter of young people look for training opportunities there. Conversely, young people often use YouTube (47 percent), WhatsApp (38 percent) and TikTok (30 percent) – but these channels are used much less frequently by companies, with only 18 percent using YouTube, for example.
“Marketing apprenticeships via social media offers potential for improvement. Companies should adapt their communication more to the media behavior of young people in order to reach more potential applicants,” recommend the study authors. Analog communication is also worth taking a closer look: young people with a low level of education in particular use job advertisements in newspapers or notices on “bulletin boards” in schools more often than companies do.
