Höhere Anforderungen in der beruflichen Erstausbildung?

It is often held that increasing skills requirements in vocational education and the demands of the labour market are causing restricted access to vocational training for school-leavers with a lower secondary school certificate. Yet, we do not actually know whether it has become more demanding to pursue an apprenticeship. This contribution offers initial empirical evidence to this problem by applying a historical-comparative, including a qualitative content analysis, of the federal training regulations for selected occupations within the dual system. For some occupations significant changes over time can be observed, although the results do not indicate a general trend. Furthermore, an increasing complexity of occupational demands does not necessarily imply that school-leavers with a lower secondary school certificate do not have access to the respective segments of the vocational training market. At the same time, the analysis shows that a permanent upgrading of entry requirements in more attractive occupational segments is not always accompanied by an actual increase in skills requirements.