Well-prepared with dual training

The dual vocational training system in Germany represents an important foundation for secure employment. You will find the most important facts and figures on the topic here.

 1.25 million people in Germany were employed as trainees in 2021; 65.5 per cent of them were men. In 2011, 1.47 million people were engaged in vocational training.

466,200 new training contracts were concluded in 2021. The number has been falling by single-digit percentage figures for a number of years.

One fifth of all contracts were concluded in the five most popular occupational groups: retail sales personnel (24,300), office management assistants (22,900), sales assistants (20,100), motor vehicle mechatronic technicians (19,900) and medical specialists (17,400).

There is especially strong demand for careers in the IT sector: IT specialists (15,800 new contracts, plus 5 per cent), e-commerce sales assistants (1,900, plus 26 per cent) and warehouse logistics specialists (important for the online retail trade [10,300, plus 11 per cent]).

90 per cent of all trainees successfully complete their training. 95.3 per cent of the graduates of dual vocational training programmes have a job on completing their training. 68 per cent of trainees continue to be employed by their training enterprise when they complete their vocational training.

646,188 people were employed in a dual vocational training programme in trade and industry at the end of December 2021; 60,948 of them did not hold German citizenship. The figures for the skilled trades were 307,263 and 49,362 respectively.

46,900 professional qualifications acquired abroad were recognised in Germany in 2021. That was 5 per cent more than in 2020. You can find more information on recognition here.

The most common professional qualifications acquired outside Germany in 2021 were in the sectors: healthcare and nursing (19,752), physiotherapy (1,359) and care working (1,056). The top three countries of origin were Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Philippines and Serbia.