Criteria lists of academic skills are widely used to assess the work readiness of people who are looking to enter or re-enter the apprenticeship market. These instruments represent a particular hurdle in the path to vocational training for low-skilled would-be trainees. We investigate the validity of one such list used in Germany. As different…

This article investigates the role of 'voice', technology, innovation (of products, services, or processes) and labor shortages in the training participation of low skilled workers in German companies. By building on the key findings of previous research, hypotheses on drivers of training participation are derived from filter theory and the…

Individuals who pass through low-skilled work in their careers can represent this phase as showing strength of character as obstacles are overcome. However, continuing to work in low-skilled employment has so many negative consequences that finding ways to assist those individuals' career development is an important challenge for guidance policy…

Improvements in workforce skills are essential for European countries to attain higher economic growth and to compete effectively on product markets. Literature indicates a positive relationship between levels of education and productivity growth. This report builds on and expands this body of research in two ways: (1) It investigates the…

This paper examines trends in school-to-work transitions of young men and women with lower and higher secondary education in West Germany between 1984 and 2005. This period was marked by an increase in young women's educational attainment and a continuous growth of the service sector. We assume that both developments have benefited women more than…

This book assembles over 50 papers from the 7th Triennial European Research Conference of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA), which was held from the 4th to the 7th of September 2013 at Humboldt-University in Berlin. The title of the conference was "Changing Configurations of Adult Education in Transitional…

The role of ethnically marked, nonstandard varieties of German in the Federal Republic of Germany is examined. It is shown that there is a "generic" variety of Immigrant Worker German that unites all immigrant laborers and their families into one group with perceived "ethnic" characteristics. Subdivisions within the group are…

The Ford factory in Cologne, Germany, uses a variety of flexible learning methods to enable unskilled and semiskilled workers to acquire vocational qualifications. Methods include tutorials, simulations, micro worlds, and hypermedia databases. (SK)

For disadvantaged youth who leave school without vocational qualifications, as well as unskilled 20-30 year olds, a combination of work and initial vocational training is an especially suitable strategy. Constant supportive counseling and adapted examinations would also help. (SK)

This manuscript was prepared after the author spent a year in Germany studying the problems of vocational education with special reference to the application of German methods in American schools. The author discusses in a clear and concise manner four interesting and important problems in vocational education in Germany, about which there is need…

Although there is no single measure of the degree of integration of the children of immigrants, individual trends and indicators can be interpreted to depict the status and opportunities of young foreigners residing in Germany. Although the standard of school-leaving certificates rose, the number of young foreigners is still disproportionately…

In the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Denmark, employment trends have been considerably more favorable than in Germany. A country is considered successful in an employment policy context if unemployment is falling steadily or is low and if employment is increasing steadily or the employment rate has reached a high level.…

In view of German reunification, the 1992-94 recession, and ongoing demographic, technological, organizational, and social changes, alternative projections of labor market and employment structures provide policy makers with needed information. The Institut fur Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB) structural labor projection (1989) forecasted…

Surveys by the Institut fur Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB) of German firms' job openings have been combined with job registry data from the Bundesanstalt fur Arbeit on an annual basis since 1989 in order to determine the scope and structure of the aggregate national supply of job openings. The surveys also indicated problems encountered…