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In Germany, about half of the school-leavers – irrespective of their school-leaving certificate – start an apprenticeship instead of entering the labour market or university. Firms act as gatekeepers who influence which school-leavers start an apprenticeship. Previous studies have provided important information on the reasons firms train. By analysing tasks, I consider an additional characteristic that probably influences firms' training decisions. The aim of my study is twofold: I examine whether tasks performed in a firm first correlate with the decision to provide apprenticeship training and second with the school-leaving certificate of newly hired apprentices. I use the BIBB Establishment Panel on Training and Competence Development to estimate hybrid models with the task shares of firms as the main independent variables. The results suggest that firms' task composition affects their decisions concerning vocational education and training (VET). Firms with a high share of routine or manual tasks are more likely to be involved in VET. Moreover, high shares of manual and routine tasks are accompanied by a higher demand for apprentices with lower secondary certificates, and high shares of interactive tasks by a high demand for apprentices with the highest secondary school-leaving certificate (i.e. the Abitur). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing wage differentials due to educational investments within occupations can explain the persistent wage inequality in western industrialised countries, such as Germany. This article contributes to the discussion by examining occupation-specific variance in wage returns for men working full-time in Western Germany between 1976 and 2010. We distinguish between three groups: employees with a vocational education and training (VET) degree with an Abitur (a certificate allowing entrance into a German university), with a VET degree but no Abitur, or with a university degree. First, we theoretically argue why wage returns vary within educational levels across occupations. Second, on the assumption that wage return variance will be greater at higher educational levels, we investigate wage return variance patterns for VET and university graduates over time. Estimating a two-stage multilevel model using the Sample of Integrated Labour Market Biographies (SIAB), we show that holding an Abitur increases wage return variance across occupations. Moreover, we find a significantly higher occupation-specific variance in wage returns to education for university graduates than for VET graduates. For the period under examination, we reveal a fluctuating variance in wage returns for VET graduates and a slightly decreasing variance for university graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, Western societies have experienced educational expansion accompanied by an upgrading of skills. The literature provides competing hypotheses on the consequences for educational wage returns — among them are the positional value theory, routine-biased technological change, and the social closure theory. We test these theoretical perspectives empirically on young, male full-time workers in West Germany between 1976 and 2010 in two ideal-type occupational segments using 2.34 million administrative earnings records (Sample of Integrated Labor Market Biographies, SIAB). Our findings show no credential inflation across all levels of education. Instead, the picture in both segments — negative effects of educational expansion on the returns to medium- but not high-level skills — confirms the predictions of routine-biased technological change. Wage premiums for medium-skilled workers differ between segments: the premiums worsen over time in the general segment whereas social-closure mechanisms seem to weaken this negative trend for vocational graduates in the specific segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented on Clostridium difficile surveillance trends in Saxony, Germany.