Les privilèges des jeunes sur le marché du travail allemand

Abstract

In Germany, the earnings' position of young people relative to adults has not experienced a similar negative development as in other countries. Neither in general, nor by sex, qualification, occupation or industrial sector and firm size, a clear "scissors-effect" against the earnings of young people could be seen from the data. The general trend over a longer period of time of observation had been rather inverse, running in favour of the younger age group. Furthermore, a general tendency towards an over-qualification of young people for the jobs on which they are actually working on cannot be found. It is also shown that the employment of young people in so-called precarious jobs like part-time work, fixed-term employment, temporary or contract work is not a serious problem in Germany, at least not to a greater degree for young people than for the rest of the workforce, and no significant deterioration of the relative position of young workers can be seen. The main reason for the comparably good situation of the relative earnings position of young workers is the low pressure on this group by a - growing - but still very low age-specific unemployment - compared to other countries. The low level of youth unemployment in Germany is mainly the result of a general social consensus in this country based on a dual system of vocational training.