Newspapers in the Tamedia group reportedExternal link on Thursday that 22.4% of apprenticeship contracts begun in 2017 were dissolved before being carried through to the end. This corresponds to some 11,810 trainees, the papers write.
They nevertheless specify that ending a contract doesn’t mean the end of the young person’s education: it can also mean simply a change of contract terms, for example moving from a two-year apprentice contract to a three-year one. For the same batch of apprentices, starting in 2017, the quit rate was a more modest 4.4% – but even this figure is rising, the papers say.
Jobs involving manual labour have the highest rate of premature ending: caulkers and plasterers are at the top of the list, at almost 50%. On the other end of the scale, specialist cooks, geomatic experts, and 3D designers have rates of only around 10%.
The most common reasons cited for dissolving a contract were wrong job choice, health reasons, or the performance of the apprentice.
Experts interviewed by the newspapers also said that many young people are increasingly keen to find a meaningful career, rather than seeing themselves as mere labour power. One youth expert also said he had seen a big increase in fears among young people over the past few years connected to the climate crisis, the conflict in Ukraine, and the Covid pandemic.
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.