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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).

This study seeks to reveal the heterogeneity in occupation-specific wage returns among graduates of the German vocational education and training (VET) system. We distinguish between VET graduates with and without a higher education entrance certificate (i.e. an Abitur). To implement our hierarchical multi-level analyses, we exploit the latest wave of the BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey from 2018. By estimating occupation-specific wage returns, we reveal gaps between VET graduates with and without an Abitur. Additionally, we analyse several occupational characteristics to show how they contribute to the gaps in wage returns between our study groups. Our results show that employees combining an Abitur with a VET degree achieve higher wage returns than those VET graduates without an Abitur across all occupations. Employees holding a VET degree without an Abitur display greater inequality of occupation-specific wage returns. Among the occupational characteristics, task composition is the main driver of the differences in wage returns.

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.

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]

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To the Editor: Vonberg et al. (1) recently commented on the increase of Clostridium difficile seen in US hospitals by using discharge diagnoses and confirmed the observation from the United [...]