"Indispensable for covering tomorrow's need for skilled workers through more vocational training"

When Hamburg's education senator Ties Rabe (SPD) presents the school statistics for the Hanseatic city, he has actually only had one core message for years: There is a new record - with more students, more high school graduates, more teachers and usually even with more schools. However, since the corona pandemic, Rabe has known that things can be different. Because his area of ​​responsibility also includes the vocational schools in the Hanseatic city and they have significantly fewer students compared to the 2019/2020 school year.

In 2022, for which Rabe presented the relevant statistics on Tuesday, around 17,370 young people started an apprenticeship in Hamburg. That was 10.5 percent less than before the corona pandemic in 2019. According to the education senator, the eleven percent decline in classic dual vocational training in one company was the most obvious.

"I am very concerned that the training market has not yet recovered from its dramatic slump during the corona pandemic," said Rabe in the town hall. He spoke of "difficult news" for the city.

For decades, the Hanseatic city has benefited from being attractive to young people. The training market is also designed for school leavers from the surrounding towns and districts in Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The demand for trainees cannot be met with young people from Hamburg alone. However, according to the education authorities, there is currently a lack of immigrants from the surrounding area and from large parts of the republic.

The number of vocational students coming from Lower Saxony, for example, fell by 25.4 percent compared to the year before the corona pandemic. In total, around 18 percent fewer trainees came from other federal states in 2022. The number of Hamburg students who start an apprenticeship immediately after graduation has even increased by 4.6 percent.

On Friday, Rabe wants to present measures together with Chamber of Commerce President Norbert Aust, Chamber of Commerce President Hjalmar Stemmann, the head of the Hamburg employment agency Sönke Fock and representatives of trade unions and associations on how more trainees can be won over for training in Hamburg. The need, as the Chamber of Commerce and Crafts made clear on Tuesday, would remain great. The employment agency alone currently has 5,000 vacancies for apprenticeships.

"Now it is essential to cover tomorrow's need for skilled workers through more vocational training," said Rabe. Otherwise, the level of prosperity in the Hanseatic city could not be maintained in the long term. The current numbers of young professionals are "insufficient."