Long-term comparison

Number of training companies falls to new low

34,082 young people started their apprenticeship training last year. By comparison, in 1980 there were still more than 60,000 new apprentices.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Greiner AG, voestalpine, Spar OÖ)

Never before have so few companies trained apprentices as in the previous year. The number of training companies fell to just over 27,000, compared to more than 38,000 in 2008.

According to a report submitted to parliament by the Ministry of Labor and Economic Affairs, the largest decline in the number of apprenticeship companies was in the trades and crafts sector as well as in commerce. In order to get apprenticeship training back on track, company apprenticeship funding will be increased from 270 to 280 million euros this year.

Apprenticeship expert Alfred Freundlinger from the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber explains the drop in the number of companies offering apprenticeships with the fact that around every second company only has one apprentice. When this apprentice is finished and no other applicants apply or are accepted, the company is dropped from the statistics.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com)

On the other hand, larger companies with many apprentices have recently taken on more young applicants. According to WKO figures, the number of apprentices in their first year of training was 32,484 in 2015. Last year, the figure was significantly higher at 34,082. Of course, we are a long way from the figures of the 1980s, when there were more than 60,000 new apprentices per year.

Only 39.1 percent of young people still do an apprenticeship
One reason for this is the demographic trend: while there were almost 131,000 young people aged 15 in 1980 due to the baby boomer generation, there were only 87,266 in 2023. And of these, only 39.1 percent decided to do an apprenticeship, the others stayed at school. In comparison: in 1980, 47.2 percent of 15-year-olds opted for an apprenticeship.

The proportion of companies that train apprentices is particularly high in industry, where almost 40 percent of all companies take on young people. After all, the aim is to secure the skilled workers of the future. Around 36 percent of banks and insurance companies have apprentices, 23.3 percent in trade and crafts, 10.5 percent in commerce and eight percent in tourism and gastronomy.

Industry is also the sector with the highest number of apprentices per training company: On average, there are 13.4 apprentices per company, because industrial companies are also larger. In the transport and traffic sector, there is an average of 6.4 apprentices.

The shortage of skilled workers threatens to worsen dramatically
There is a reason why the state is putting more resources into promoting apprenticeships: in the coming years, there will be a wave of retirements as the baby boomers retire. Companies will therefore urgently need staff. Without countermeasures, the shortage of skilled workers threatens to worsen dramatically.