Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/318450 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
ILO Working Paper No. 137
Publisher: 
International Labour Organization (ILO), Geneva
Abstract: 
Skills development through quality apprenticeships can help young people make a successful transition from school to adulthood with sustainable, satisfying and rewarding employment. But even in Switzerland, which has a very strong standardized apprenticeship system with a good reputation, there is still an average dropout rate of about 20 per cent over the last two decades. This paper seeks to identify the influencing factors of quality apprenticeships and elaborates possible reasons why young people in low-reputation apprenticeships drop out more often than those in popular professions. Two studies conducted by the author with apprentices in the vocational fields of construction and media design serve as the scientific basis. The first study - in the field of media design, a popular field for vocational training - found that the pedagogical and didactic skills of the trainer, in particular the positive handling of errors, trust, honest and direct feedback, as well as the variability of tasks and the relationship with work colleagues, have a significant influence on training satisfaction. It was also found that the important influencing factors of competence growth in the workplace are not the same as those that significantly influence the grades at school The second study - in the field of construction, a vocational training track with low reputation - compared apprentices who terminated their apprenticeship contract with a control group of non-terminators in order to determine the factors influencing the probability of apprenticeship contract termination. Wrong career choice and unfavourable working and training conditions significantly increase the probability of aborting the apprenticeship. This paper goes one step further and combines the results of the two studies with two sociological theoretical concepts, the concept of "social reproduction" and the concept of different "life worlds" taken from SINUS Institute studies; these sociological concepts explain why young people from families with a low socio-economic background belong to the target group of disadvantaged young people but match very well with skilled trades when their specific needs are addressed. For this reason, the author concludes by providing concrete recommendations for policymakers, employers' associations and trade unions to leverage the untapped potential of disadvantaged young people in order to address the shortage of skilled workers in skilled trades. Social justice demands long-term investment in this disadvantaged group of young people as they deserve not to be left behind. Their human capital is valuable for economic growth as well as for societal and individual prosperity.
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-92-2-041901-4
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Working Paper

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