Career entry 2020: Apprenticeship graduates prove adaptability

For more than fourteen years, the Swiss Commercial Association has surveyed KV graduates in Switzerland about working conditions during apprenticeships, the transition to professional life and their plans for the future. The 2020 survey focused on the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on learning and working, as well as on finding a job.

Difficulty in starting a career

The Covid 19 pandemic has hit young professionals hard and made their entry into the labor market more difficult. Thus, in November 2020, around 9.1% of the KV apprenticeship graduates surveyed were looking for a job. Only 64.8% stated that they were still employed. Compared to the previous year, this represents a decrease of 5%, abruptly ending the positive trend of recent years (see chart 1). "The decrease in labor force participation rates can be attributed to the difficult labor market situation in the first year of the pandemic." Nina Meier, Basic Education & Youth Counseling project worker at the Commercial Association, summarizes the results. Also worrying is the increase in apprenticeship graduates in insecure employment. In 2020, the proportion of graduates who were employed on a temporary basis increased by 5%. This must be viewed critically, as a quarter of those in such employment state that they would prefer an open-ended contract, but were not offered one. The situation is similar with graduates who are in a part-time position: 27.7% state that they would prefer a full-time position. Nina Meier warns against this development: "The significant increase in fixed-term employment contracts, reduced stints and part-time positions are indicators that the difficult economic situation is making it more difficult to start a career. In the long term, this can have negative consequences, such as lower wages, but also an impairment of career opportunities."

Building up know-how through further training

With the KV, young people have a solid and generalist basic education for starting a career. With subsequent further training, they can quickly specialize in new professions and develop into sought-after experts. Thus, 85.9% of the apprenticeship graduates are also convinced that the basic commercial training is a good starting point for their professional career. Many young business people are able to apply the skills they acquired during their apprenticeship to their current job (see chart 2). "The well-founded training and the agility for their career that they have acquired as a result are of particular benefit to them in a year of crisis. Commercial apprentices willingly complete further training courses, which are essential if they are to succeed on the labor market in the long term. Thus, interim solutions are now being proactively sought and used during the crisis in order to bridge unemployment and at the same time build up know-how in a targeted manner". In keeping with the motto "lifelong learning," 9 out of 10 graduates want to continue their education in the near future. This confirms the trend towards further training, which the LAU dealt with intensively in 2019. After the initial training, the will to acquire more knowledge is clearly evident. Already in November 2020, 32.3% of the respondents have started further training. A further 27.7% intend to tackle the project in the next 12 months. The BM2 remains one of the most popular courses of further education directly after an apprenticeship, followed by a course of study at a university of applied sciences.

Home office and the apprenticeship

Despite numerous changes on the labor market, young business people were not put off by the tense situation and showed a high level of commitment during the application process. This observation was also made by Nina Meier. She notes that "the graduates as well as their training supervisors have shown a high degree of adaptability and have adapted the final phase of the training to the new work norm and the more difficult conditions through additional effort. And this without sacrificing quality". Satisfaction with the nature of the work assignments remained high even in the home office, which became the new work environment for more than 50% of the apprenticeship graduates starting in the spring. Some 74% indicated that the assignments they received in the home office were educational and meaningful (see Chart 3). Likewise, learners were able to develop their digital skills and work independently. More than half are convinced that they have learned new things in the home office. The commercial apprenticeship completed in 2020 is thus in no way inferior to the qualifications of previous years.

Source: Swiss Commercial Association