The effect of business cycle expectations on the German apprenticeship market: estimating the impact of Covid-19.

IF 1.6 Q2 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Samuel Muehlemann, Harald Pfeifer, Bernhard H Wittek
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引用次数: 12

Abstract

A firm's expectation about the future business cycle is an important determinant of the decision to train apprentices, especially as German firms typically offer apprenticeships to either fill future skilled worker positions, or as a substitute for other types of labor. The current coronavirus crisis will have a strong and negative impact on the German economy, according to the current business cycle expectations of German firms. To the extent that the training decisions of firms depend on these perceptions, we expect a downward shift in firm demand for apprentices and consequently also a decrease in the equilibrium number of apprenticeship contracts. To assess the impact of changes in business cycle expectations, we analyze German data on the apprenticeship market at the state-level and at the occupation-level within states from 2007 to 2019. We apply first-differences regressions to account for unobserved heterogeneity across states and occupations, allowing us to identify the association between changes in two popular measures of business cycle expectations (the ifo Business Climate Index and the ifo Employment Barometer) and subsequent changes in the demand for apprentices, the number of new apprenticeship contracts, unfilled vacancies and unsuccessful applicants. We find that the German apprenticeship market prior to the current crisis can be characterized by excess demand for apprentices (although there are matching problems in some states, with both a high share of unfilled vacancies and a high share of unsuccessful applicants). Taking into account the most recent data on business cycle expectations up to June 2020, we estimate that the coronavirus-related decrease in firms' expectations about the business cycle can be associated with a predicted 8% decrease in firm demand for apprentices and a 6% decrease in the number of new apprenticeship positions in Germany compared to 2019 (- 30,000 apprenticeship contracts; 95% confidence interval: ± 8000).

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商业周期预期对德国学徒市场的影响:新冠肺炎影响的估计
企业对未来商业周期的预期是其培训学徒的重要决定因素,尤其是德国企业通常提供学徒来填补未来技术工人的职位,或者作为其他类型劳动力的替代品。根据德国企业当前的商业周期预期,当前的冠状病毒危机将对德国经济产生强烈的负面影响。在某种程度上,企业的培训决策取决于这些认知,我们预计企业对学徒的需求会下降,因此学徒合同的均衡数量也会减少。为了评估商业周期预期变化的影响,我们分析了2007年至2019年德国各州学徒市场和各州职业水平的数据。我们应用首差回归来解释各州和职业之间未观察到的异质性,使我们能够确定两种常用的商业周期预期指标(ifo商业景气指数和ifo就业晴雨表)的变化与学徒需求、新学徒合同数量、未填补的空缺和不成功的申请人之间的关联。我们发现,在当前危机之前,德国学徒市场的特点是对学徒的需求过剩(尽管在一些州存在匹配问题,空缺空缺的比例很高,不成功申请者的比例也很高)。考虑到截至2020年6月的最新商业周期预期数据,我们估计,与2019年相比,与冠状病毒相关的企业对商业周期预期的下降可能与企业对学徒的需求预计下降8%和德国新学徒职位数量减少6%有关(- 3万份学徒合同;95%置信区间:±8000)。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
3.40
自引率
7.70%
发文量
9
审稿时长
13 weeks
期刊介绍: The main focus of this journal is to provide a platform for original empirical investigations in the field of professional, vocational and technical education, comparing the effectiveness, efficiency and equity of different vocational education systems at the school, company and systemic level. The journal fills a gap in the existing literature focusing on empirically-oriented academic research and stimulating the interest in strengthening the vocational part of the educational system, both at the basic and higher education level.
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