Conference Agenda

In recent years, VET in its dual organization model has attracted extraordinary interest worldwide (Markowitsch and Wittig, 2020). The resistance of countries such as Germany and Switzerland to the 2008 financial crisis placed their dual apprenticeship model at the center of international debates, making it a kind of “miracle recipe” that would not only provide skilled workers, but also help to control youth unemployment. The dual model is often referred to as an “anti-unemployment recipe” that could be transposed from Switzerland or Germany to other countries to solve the problem of youth unemployment (Jäger et alii 2016, Gessler 2019), including Spain (Cámara de Comercio de España, 2015; Carrasco et al. 2021).

But beyond these exciting declarations and glittering promises, we must ask what the true impact of the dual model on youth unemployment is. More precisely, the questions we would like to address in our contribution are the following:

- To what extent is it possible to establish a direct causal relationship between the development of the dual model and low youth unemployment?

- To what extent can the dual model actually be considered as a form of organization of VET that ensures a high level of integration of those who would otherwise be at risk of becoming unemployed?

- To what extent, according to given socio-economic conditions, school-based forms of VET are able to ensure the integration of young people in upper secondary education.

The questions asked here are complex and require nuanced responses (Stolz Gonon 2012). If we compare national data on youth unemployment and participation in dual-track programmes, we can see a certain correlation. However, further analysis requires caution in interpreting this correlation, as there are many factors influencing the youth unemployment rate (national economic situation, availability of full-time schools at upper secondary level, staying in the family etc.). (Marhuenda-Fluixá, 2018; Wolter et alii, 2018, p. 116)

At the same time, the dual model relies heavily on the participation of companies, which are more concerned with identifying motivated young people with strong profiles for training than with responding to social policy issues. Considering this aspect, it is questionable whether dual model is a better instrument to integrate as many young people as possible and in particular also young people with weaker profiles then full-time schools. (Imdorf 2016, Marhuenda 2019)

To better understand this apparent paradox, we will analyse in depth the integrative scope of VET in Switzerland and Spain. Switzerland is a country with a long tradition of the dual model and is currently the European country with the highest rate of young people in this type of training and at the same time it is among the countries with the lowest youth unemployment rates (Wettstein, Schmid, Gonon 2014). Spain is a country with a vocational training system organized around full-time schools, but for a decade now initiatives to develop dual VET have been taking place in order to react, officially, to the high rate of young unemployment (Martìnez-Morales & Marhuenda 2020, Marhuenda 2019).

It will therefore be interesting to ask whether, on the one hand, the Swiss dual apprenticeship model appears to be an effective tool for the integration of young people into upper secondary education and whether, on the other hand, data of the laste decade about VET in Spain suggest that the already well established full-time vocational schools have a hight capacity to integrate even without being dual. Two issues deserve our attention here: the contrast between dual and non-dual VET, and the labor market and active employment policies, including specific form of apprenticeship contracts.

Firms are important gatekeepers for the transition from school to dual VET (Kohlrausch 2012). The hiring decisions of firms structure the transitions and determine which youths enter the dual VET system. In recent years, two trends can be observed in the transition from school to vocational training in Germany: On the one hand, the transition is becoming increasingly difficult for young people with a lower secondary school leaving certificate or less (Kleinert/Jacob 2012), and on the other hand, the number of young people starting vocational training with Abitur (highest German school-leaving certificate which acts as university entrance certificate) is rising (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung 2022, p.177).

So far, little is known about the role of firms in these trends. This study addresses this gap. The aim is to investigate which firm characteristics contribute to the fact that graduates with Abitur or lower secondary school graduates are hired as apprentices.

The results of my analyses are of interest for all European countries with a VET system since it widens the knowledge about the mechanism driving inequality between apprentices. My findings help to understand how firms influence the inequalities between young people with different school-leaving certificates which are often linked to the individual social and migration background.

The qualification structure of a firm should influence which school-certificates newly hired apprentices have. Firms with higher levels of human capital are more productive (Crook et al., 2011) and should have higher requirements for the human capital resources and thereby productivity of their hired apprentices. Youngsters with Abitur who spend more time in school invested more and acquired more human capital (Becker, 1964), can signal with their certificate a higher productivity (Spence, 1973) and hence are more likely to meet the high requirements of highly productive firms.

Furthermore, firms search for apprentices who fit into their team, e.g. concerning their age (Imdorf, 2012) or their migration background (Imdorf, 2010). The fit between employees concerning their qualification background and hence their productivity might be a further dimension firms keep in mind when hiring apprentices. Employees with a university degree and apprentices with Abitur share the same school-leaving certificate and are more equal than employees with a university degree and apprentices with a lower or medium school-leaving certificate. Taking both argumentations together, I argue that firms with a share of employees with a university degree hire more apprentices with Abitur.

Recently firms in Germany suffer under unfilled training positions which makes it more difficult for them to secure their demand for skilled labour (Leber and Schwengler, 2021). Firms can meet this problem by withdrawing from dual training and hiring skilled employees from the external labour market. However, this startagy implies that the firms loos the advantage of dual VET and only works if enough skilled labour is available on the external labour market. Another possibility of firms is reducing the requirements for the school-leaving certificate.

The training strategy of firms influences training decisions. Theoretically one can distinguish two strategies: the production- and investment-oriented strategy (Lindley, 1975; Merrilees, 1983). I argue that firms following an investment-oriented strategy depend on apprentices not leaving the firm after training to secure their investments. However, apprentices with Abitur might leave the firm after training to study at an university. So, I assume firms following an investment-oriented strategy to hire less apprentices with Abitur. In contrast, firms following a production-oriented strategy are not dependent apprentices staying in the firm after their graduation. Instead that they prefer to hire school-leavers with Abitur because they are more productive, need less instructions and hence generate higher returns for the firms.