The number of apprentices in the construction industry has halved compared to previous years, and companies urgently need young talent. The Munich Guild’s training workshop shows what motivates trainees – and why it is a misconception that studying is always the better way.
Not everyone is cut out for craftsmanship. Markus Söder, for example, says that his father, who ran a small construction company in Nuremberg, gave him two left hands. “Your mouth is ahead of your craft,” he is said to have told the child. That’s why the Bavarian Prime Minister is today using his mouth to campaign for young talent in the trades. To visit the Steininger stonemasonry business in the north of Munich, he put a black hoody over his white shirt with “Motivation Handwerk” written on the chest.