Gunter Grittmann
Head of Information and Communication
E-mail: grittmann@zew.de
Phone: +49 (0)621-1235-132
Fax: +49 (0)621-1235-255
Kathrin Böhmer
Public Relations Officer
E-mail: boehmer@zew.de
Phone: +49 (0)621-1235-103
Fax: +49 (0)621-1235-255
Quality vocational education pays off for young professionals who stay with their training companies, as has been shown over and over. According to new insights, however, young professionals who change to a new company directly after their training period can benefit as well: from a good training quality and from a strict selection of trainees by their training company. This is an important finding since employees who change to a new company directly after their vocational training are frequently suspected of having a below-average performance. A notably worse payment compared to professionals who stay with their training company is the immediate consequence of this presumption. Some of the young professionals who change to a new company manage to avoid severe cuts in payment since they are able to convince the new company of having had an excellent vocational education. The new employers usually take a close look on the quality of the training firms and accordingly adjust their payment offers. They might for example reward applicants if they had been trained in a large company, if their former companies paid their trainees relatively high wages , and if their former companies had works councils supervising the quality of the vocational education. These factors contribute to an increase of the initial payment of those who change to a new company of up to eight per cent. These are the main findings of a recent study conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, Germany. read more
If politics and economy do not manage to considerably increase the labour force participation of senior employees and women in the coming years, the German economy and thus all German citizens will face substantial losses in wealth. Yet, if the loss of labour force due to demographic changes can be balanced out partially, cumulative wealth gains could be achieved, amounting to approximately 450 billion euros between 2014 and 2025. This approximately equals the current annual gross domestic product of Bavaria. These are the findings of a study conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. The study analyses wealth effects resulting from different measures to safeguard skilled personnel. read more