Never before have so few companies trained students as the year before. The number of training companies dropped to just over 27,000. In comparison: in 2008 there were just over 38,000.
As shown in a report by the Ministry of Labor and Economic Affairs submitted to Parliament, the largest decline in the number of apprenticeships occurred in the crafts, trades and commerce sectors. In order to get the apprenticeship system going again, business funding for apprenticeships will be increased this year from 270 to 280 million euros.
Apprentice expert Alfred Freundlinger of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce explains the decline in the number of apprenticeship companies by saying that about every second company has only one apprentice. When this is done and no more applicants apply or are accepted, the company is removed from the statistics.
In return, larger companies with many apprentices have recently hired more young applicants. According to WKO figures for 2015, the number of apprentices in the first year of training was 32,484. Last year, that was considerably more: 34,082. Admittedly, we are still far from the values of the 1980s – when there were more than 60,000 new apprentices per year.
Only 39.1 percent of young people do an internship
One reason is demographic development: while in 1980 there were almost 131,000 young people aged 15 as a result of the baby boom generation, in 2023 there were only 87,266. And of those, only 39.1 percent decided to do an internship; the others stayed in school. By comparison, in 1980, 47.2 percent of 15-year-olds opted for an education.
The share of companies training apprentices is particularly high in industry, where almost 40 percent of all companies hire young people. Ultimately, the goal is to secure the skilled workers of the future. In banks and insurance companies, around 36 percent of companies employ apprentices, in trade and crafts this is 23.3 percent, in retail 10.5 percent and in tourism and hospitality eight percent.
Industry is also the sector where there are the most students per training company: on average there are 13.4 interns per company because the industrial companies are also larger. In the transport and traffic sector there are on average 6.4 students.
Skilled labor shortage threatens to worsen dramatically
There is a reason why the state is investing more resources in financing apprenticeships: there will be a wave of retirements in the coming years as baby boomers retire. Companies will therefore urgently need staff. Without countermeasures, the shortage of skilled workers threatens to worsen dramatically.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
