The dual system
Around half of each school-leaving cohort in Germany still begins a dual apprenticeship. Unfilled training places and young people without a place exist side by side — the same mismatch seen on the wider labour market.
Policy file · Education & skills
Learning at work, for life
Every qualification Bärbel Bas holds was earned alongside a job — an apprenticeship, then evening and part-time courses for two decades. Vocational and continuing education is the part of education policy closest to her own biography, and to her ministry.
§ 01Her own route
Five qualifications, none at university
- 1984
School
Hauptschulabschluss with Fachoberschulreife.
- 1987
Apprenticeship
Office clerk, DVG.
- 1997
Social insurance
Sozialversicherungsfachangestellte.
- 2002–03
Management
Health-insurance business administrator; trainer qualification.
- 2007
HR diploma
Personalmanagement-Ökonomin (VWA), evening study.
The point is not that vocational training made her a politician. It is that she knows the German skills system from the user’s side: dual training, employer-sponsored further training, evening study at an administrative academy (Verwaltungs- und Wirtschaftsakademie). These are exactly the instruments that labour-market policy now relies on to retrain workers for a changing economy.
§ 02Fields
Skills in a changing labour market
From school to work
Youth employment agencies (Jugendberufsagenturen) bring job centres, employment agencies and youth services together. The 2026 basic income reform gives under-30s priority for placement into work or training.
Further training while employed
The Federal Employment Agency co-finances further training for employees whose jobs are changing through structural change, and the qualification allowance supports companies in transition.
Industry in transition
Job losses in manufacturing — 236,000 fewer people in work in August 2026 than a year earlier — make retraining for shortage occupations in care, construction and skilled trades a central labour-market task.1
“No job without AI”
Bas told the Bundestag’s digital committee in March 2026 that by the end of the decade there would be no job in Germany without AI.2 Digital skills therefore become part of every occupation’s training.
Recognition of foreign qualifications
For immigrants, the recognition of professional qualifications is often the bottleneck between arrival and skilled work — a recurring theme in the debate on labour-market integration.
Sources
- Federal Employment Agency, “Arbeitsmarkt im September 2026”. arbeitsagentur.de
- German Bundestag, hib short report, 26 Mar 2026. bundestag.de
- German Bundestag, biography of Bärbel Bas, 18th electoral term. bundestag.de