Give them a chance

There are several reasons why the job situation has improved for youngsters in the northeast of Germany in spite of the global economic crisis. As an OECD paper recently pointed out, Germany’s “dual system” of vocational training and education, in which the state and employers cooperate, is not strongly affected by the short-term ups and downs of the economic cycle, for instance. What matters even more in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, however, is demographic change, which has been exacerbated by massive migration from the region since 1989. Today’s young generation is quite small.

In most developing countries, the situation today is much as it was in eastern Germany for two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many young people have no prospects – and that is much more depressing than the staffing concerns of a particular industry. What people experience in their youth has a bearing on their later life. Knowledge and skills they fail to acquire today will be a great deal harder – if not impossible – to acquire later.

Frustrated youngsters often go adrift. Crime, alcohol, drugs, political extremism – either singly or combined – are serious risks. Yes, such problems also occur where there is no shortage of paid work. But in those cases, they are not quite as dangerous because employment means that young people have more reasons to reconsider their action – and that they have less time to consolidate destructive behaviour into full-blown subcultures.

No doubt, the private sector needs to prosper in order for as many people as possible to find good jobs and long-term prospects. Only private enterprise can create paid employment on the required scale. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to simply leave young people’s fate to the market. Companies are not in a position to provide all the training required – which is why Germany’s dual system of vocational training is often praised.

To enable businesses to thrive, schools and universities need to prepare students for working life. It is absurd to design curricula without taking account of the practical needs of the economy. Using educational establishments as day care centres for redundant adolescents is an offence against youth and society.

In principle, anyone who does not find paid employment always has the chance of becoming self-employed. Indeed, this is a path taken by many young people in poor countries because they have no alternative. All too often, however, they make only a paltry living in the informal sector and have no stable prospects. In any case, the chances of someone without occupational experience becoming a successful entrepreneur are worse than those of people who already know the market and its participants.

Another alternative is migration. But while young people from eastern Germany are free to relocate, their peers in developing countries face real obstacles. The rich world has closed its borders. Young Swedes are happily applying for trainee positions in the hotel trade of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Young Sene­­galese, Peruvians or Bangladeshis do not have that option.