The costs of recruiting apprentices: Evidence from German workplace-level data

In this article, we use workplace-level data to analyse the costs of filling an apprenticeship vacancy in Germany. We find that such recruitment costs amount on average to (Sic) 600 per hire (almost one month's pay of an apprentice or approximately 1-2 % of a workplace's training expenditures), but costs are heterogeneous across workplaces and vary strongly by training occupation. Our results suggest that a high degree of competition among training workplaces in the region is associated with an increase in recruitment costs. Furthermore, we find that workplaces with a works council or an investment-oriented training strategy incur higher recruitment costs. Our results are important in light of the increasing competition for talented school leavers induced by demographic change.