Business
Starting an apprenticeship is currently difficult in Vienna. There are many more young people looking for an apprenticeship than in the rest of Austria. The city is therefore expanding the so-called inter-company skilled worker training (ÜBA).
How do you clamp wires into a junction box? Just one of the questions that apprentices learn during their training at Jugend am Werk. More than 200 young people receive a three-year, inter-company apprenticeship in Floridsdorf. Especially in the first two years of the pandemic, the ÜBA took in many young people who would otherwise not have had a place because the classic apprenticeship market in the companies had stalled.
Ten million euros from the city
The city reacts to this and increases the budget by six million euros, explained City Councilor for Economic Affairs Peter Hanke (SPÖ). “We have now invested more than ten million euros in inter-company training. The reason is that we have a shortage of apprenticeships and this is the only federal state in this form where too few apprenticeships are offered.”
However, most of the financing is provided by the Public Employment Service (AMS). “We offer the young people the opportunity to acquire practical time in the companies and of course we offer the companies the opportunity to come here and see: I might find the right young person that I would like to train myself,” says AMS Vienna boss Petra Draxl .
problems present
The apprenticeship as a bicycle mechatronics technician is relatively new. But there are still problems with permeability, says Alexander Scheidl, who teaches bicycle mechatronics. “Currently, hardly anyone is reporting. We are actually the ones who contact companies and hope that they will take on one or the other apprentice as an intern and maybe then take them on.” Around 16,800 young people are currently being trained in Vienna in an apprenticeship, 20 percent of them in the inter-company system .
