The German vocational education and training (VET) system is admired around the world for its ability to prepare young people for skilled employment. In Germany, VET smooths transitions into work and is closely aligned with labour market demand. This report focuses on an unprecedented test of the German VET system: how to respond to the significant increase in migrants who arrived in the country in 2015-16. The study explores both the opportunities and the challenges presented by migration. Germany has already devoted significant attention to VET as a mechanism for enabling integration – and for good reason. Work-based learning assists integration because it demonstrably gives learners skills that employers want in real-world settings. The report assesses the barriers faced by learners in their journeys into and through VET, exploring how such challenges can be addressed. In addition, the study looks at system-wide issues in relation to how VET provision and integration policy is governed. Lastly, it explores opportunities for increased flexibility in the German VET system of relevance to all youth at risk of not succeeding in VET. In responding to migrant needs, German VET can become more inclusive without reducing quality.
Germany faces growing labour shortages both in high- and medium-skilled occupations and well-managed labour migration is a key policy lever to mitigate these shortages.
The report provides a brief overview of the characteristics of recently arrived asylum seekers and discusses current labour market conditions and the outlook for integration. In the preparation of this report, extensive consultations with employers were undertaken. Recent policy initiatives are assessed against good practices from other OECD countries.
More than three million individuals who were born in Germany lived in another OECD country in 2010/11. To assess the potential that this group represents for the German labour market, this review establishes the distribution of German emigrants over OECD countries, as well as their age, sex, and educational attainment. Shifts in the German diaspora towards European destination countries and higher educational attainment are documented. The largest German diaspora still resides in the United States, but the diaspora in Switzerland and Spain has grown particularly quickly. International students from Germany have even come to represent the largest group of international students from any OECD country. While German emigrants experience less favourable labour market outcomes than their peers in Germany, the emigrants work disproportionately often in high-skill occupations. Survey evidence suggests that many Germans in Germany consider emigration and that many German emigrants are open to return. Those who have returned in recent years, however, appear to have a lower educational attainment than those leaving.
En 2013, l’immigration nette vers l’Allemagne a concerné près de 437 000 personnes, ce qui représente une augmentation sensible par rapport aux années précédentes (370 000 en 2012).
Cette revue analyse les éléments clés du système allemand de gestion des migrations de travail, tant du point de vue de l’offre que de la demande.
(Cette publication est disponible en Allemand et en Anglais)