More than a third of all new apprenticeship contracts in only ten professions

The occupation of office manager is the new frontrunner in the 2014 ranking of vocational training occupations when it comes to new apprenticeship contracts. More than 29,100 young people nationwide had signed a new apprenticeship contract for this occupation by the cut-off date of 30 September. This new number one position is owed to the fact that, effective with the beginning of the new training year 2014/2015, the three predecessor occupations of office administrator, office communication assistant and office communication clerk have been combined to form one new vocational training occupation. According to an up-to-date analysis by the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), this resulted in the previous top three vocational training occupations each being demoted by one rank: management assistant for retail services with some 26,500 new apprenticeship contracts, sales assistant for retail services with some 25,200 new apprenticeship contracts and motor vehicle mechatronics technician with nearly 20,200 new apprenticeship contracts.

The most apprenticeship contracts in 2014 with female apprentices were concluded in the occupations of office manager, sales assistant for retail services, management assistant for retail services, medical and dental assistant and industrial clerk. The young men continue to favour the occupation of motor vehicle mechatronics technician, which maintains its top rank by a considerable margin, followed by the occupations of industrial mechanic, management assistant for retail services, electronics technician, plant mechanic for sanitary, heating and air conditioning systems and sales assistant for retail services.

In total, more than a third (35.7%) of all newly concluded apprenticeship contracts in 2014 were concluded in only ten vocational training occupations. In 2013, this percentage was 33.5%.

Especially women continue to focus their attention on only a few occupations. In 2014, 56.1% of all young women concluded a new contract in those ten occupations with the highest new contract figures. This is a further increase by 2.6% compared to 2013. 36.0% of all young men (2013: 35.5%) entered into a contract in the ten most strongly represented vocational training occupations.

522,231 new apprenticeship contracts in total were concluded in the past year. Of these, 59.9% were concluded by male and 40.1% by female apprentices.

It must be taken into account that the rankings of newly concluded apprenticeship contracts do not allow for conclusions regarding what are the "most popular" vocational training occupations amongst adolescents, because the decision for an apprenticeship is always also dependent on the existing supply of apprenticeship placements.