Die Angebotsabhängigkeit der Nachfrage nach Ausbildungsstellen als Problem bei der Vorausschätzung der zukünftigen Nachfrage (The dependence of demand for training places on supply as a problem in projecting future demand)

"In Germany the aim to provide young people with sufficient training places meets with great approval. The realisation of this aim is, however, in danger at present. The number of companies providing training and the number of training places available have fallen considerably in the last ten years in western Germany. In contrast the number of school-leavers has been increasing again since the mid-nineties. In order to ensure an adequate supply of training places, education policy requires projections as to the future demand for training places. Such prognoses, however, have to struggle with a dilemma. For as the following article shows, demand does not develop independently of supply. In order to be able to forecast exactly the future demand for training places, it would therefore actually be necessary to know how the supply of training places will develop. Demand projections are usually based on demarcations of the demand obtained by adding together the number of newly concluded training contracts (realised demand) and the number of applicants for training places registered at the employment office but not placed by the record date. Latent demand is not taken into account in this. If there is a drop in the supply of training places, however, this latent demand grows more strongly than the number of applicants who have not been placed in training, and helps to even out the statistical reference day results. As a consequence this means that demand figures which are recorded in times when there is a lack of training places and used as the basis for the demand forecast underestimate the actual demand if a more substantial supply of training places is made available in the forecast period. Furthermore this means that when there is a lack of training places, a declining demand rate can be expected as a result of the development of the supply of training places alone. Declining demand rates must therefore not simply be interpreted as a decrease in young people's interest. On the contrary, under the present circumstances these rates are more an indication of a reduced interest on the part of the companies in training within the dual system of vocational training." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))