07.12.2018Is apprenticeship training a cost-effective model for firms in Italy?

One solution to counteract substantial skills mismatch and skills shortages in Italy is to improve the quality and increase the popularity of apprenticeship training. It is therefore important to provide reliable information to firms about circumstances in which apprenticeship models are a potential win-win-win situation for individuals, the state and firms.

For this purpose, the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, Bertelsmann Stiftung and the Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini partnered with Prof. Dr. Samuel Muehlemann from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and Prof. Dr. Stefan C. Wolter and Eva Joho from the University of Bern and the Swiss Leading House on Economics of Education.

The resulting cost-benefit simulation shows that firms can profit from training apprentices when apprenticeships take longer (three years), the apprentice wages are low (lower than 50% of a skilled worker’s wage) and the firms can retain most of the apprentices afterwards as skilled workers.

The entire study is available here.