The effect of business cycle expectations on the German apprenticeship market: estimating the impact of Covid-19
Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training
A firm’s economic expectations affect the decision to offer apprenticeships. The article shows that - at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic - firms’ negative expectations about the business cycle could predict a decreased demand for apprentices.
- Disziplin: Wirtschaft, Bildung
- Forschungsmethode: Quantitativ
- Forschungsdesign: Sekundäranalyse, Weitere Daten (z. B. Einzelinterview, Web Scraping, Laborwerte etc.)
- Erhebungsstatus: Erhebung abgeschlossen, Ergebnisse veröffentlicht, Daten zugänglich
Ziele der Studie
The article investigates how firm expectations about business cycle developments influence apprenticeship provision by firms. Based on elasticity estimations, it attempts to project the likely short-term impact of Covid-19 on the German apprenticeship system.
Studiendesign/Umsetzung
The authors use annual data on the number of apprenticeship contracts between 2007 and 2018, processed by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) and provided by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB). To further differentiate the mechanisms of the expected apprenticeship market effect, the authors use additional data on the firms’ demand for apprentices (i.e., the sum of posted apprenticeship vacancies and unfilled positions) as well as on the number of successful and unsuccessful apprenticeship applicants from the Federal Employment Agency (2007-2019). Expectations about business cycle developments are measured by the ifo Business Climate Index (BCI) and the ifo Employment Barometer (EB), two publicly available, monthly surveys among German firms, that provide particularly current and useful insights into company expectations about the business cycle (Sauer & Wohlrabe, 2020; Wohlrabe, 2018).
Datenverfügbarkeit
Information on the ifo Business Climate Index (BCI) and ifo Employment Barometer (EB) are openly available on the ifo website:
- https://www.ifo.de/en/survey/ifo-business-climate-index
- https://www.ifo.de/en/survey/ifo-employment-barometer
The data on the number of apprenticeship contracts is available at the Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt).
Data on unfilled vacancies and successful and unsuccessful apprenticeship applicants is available at the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit).