Every year tens of thousands of young people leave school without a qualification. But the Federal Employment Agency has hardly any data about them, criticizes its chairwoman Nahles and holds the federal states responsible.
Employment agency boss Andrea Nahles has called on the federal states to forward data on school dropouts to the authorities. “To date, the Federal Agency does not even have complete data on those who leave school without a qualification, although we have been demanding this for years and there has even been a federal legal basis for this since 2020,” said the CEO of the Federal Employment Agency to the editorial network Germany. “Bremen, Hamburg and Bavaria all provide us with data, everyone else doesn’t.”
20 percent of school dropouts are unemployed
Every year, 47,000 young people leave school without a degree, Nahles said. “If you know that the unemployment rate for people without a school or vocational qualification is around 20 percent, but that of those with a school or vocational qualification is only three percent, you can imagine the challenges that the education system imposes on us year after year.”
Career orientation in school needs to start much earlier, “preferably in fifth grade,” said Nahles. The head of the employment agency demanded that regular professional internships should become compulsory in all types of schools.
“The clock is ticking” at the Basic child protection
Nahles also called for more decisive action in the discussion about basic child welfare. She warned of a further delay in the plans by the traffic light coalition. “If the federal government still wants to implement basic child security in this legislative period, then I unfortunately have to say: the clock is ticking, and very loudly,” said Nahles. “We made it clear from the start that we would need more than a year to implement it. Or to put it another way: Come to terms with it!”
The basic child security is intended to bundle previous benefits such as child benefit, benefits from citizen’s benefit for children or the child allowance. There was a heated dispute within the coalition last year about the project, especially between the Greens and the FDP.
Start date will be reviewed after criticism
The cabinet passed the bill in September – with the aim of ensuring that basic child welfare comes into force on January 1, 2025. The Federal Employment Agency had declared this start date to be unfeasible. The Federal Council also rejected parts of the reform for fear of duplicate structures in the administration. The federal government therefore announced at the beginning of December that it would review the schedule.
The starting date of January 1, 2025 is off the table, said Nahles. “The coalition’s most recent aim was for the law to reach the Federal Council in February.” The former Federal Labor Minister and former SPD leader added that she doesn’t know whether that is realistic. From the Federal Agency’s perspective, a start is possible at the beginning of July 2025 at the earliest for financial, technical and organizational reasons.
Nahles: The labor market is splitting up
Nahles also commented on the tense economic situation. According to her, this will have consequences for the labor market in the coming months. “We have been experiencing since March 2023 that the weak economy is leaving its mark and we assume that this trend will continue for a few more months,” said Nahles. The manufacturing sector as well as trade and building construction are particularly affected.
In order to retain workers, many companies resorted to short-time work. “The number of employees on short-time work due to the economic situation has recently increased slightly again,” said the BA boss. According to your information, the number of short-time workers climbed from 111,000 in August 2023 to 179,000 in October. According to the report, there are no newer figures. “We are above the average of previous years, but the situation is still stable,” said Nahles.
Nahles answered the question of whether people should be afraid for their jobs again with “no and yes”. “We still have a low unemployment rate of 5.7 percent. However, low-skilled people who are now losing their jobs have significantly worse chances of finding a new job.”
However, those who have good or very good qualifications still have every opportunity. “The labor market is becoming more and more divided and we see a two-tier labor market: on the one hand, an increasing shortage of skilled workers. On the other hand, the risk of further entrenching unemployment, especially when usable qualifications are missing,” says Nahles.