The Way Into Work

Germany’s apprenticeship system is the envy of Europe. Here’s why.

- Tim Bouquet

NOT MANY 20-YEAR-OLDS WOULD RELISH getting up at 5.45 a.m. every day in order to arrive at work for a 7.30 a.m. start. And Priscilla Wölbling admits that she does cast envious eyes at her student friends and the gentler hours they keep—“plus, of course, the long holidays,” she says, smiling. However, while Priscilla’s peers may be learning—her brother and sister are both at university—she has been both learning and earning as a second-year apprentice at the massive Mercedes-Benz plant at Sindelfingen, near Stuttgart.

More like a small town than a factory, this is Mercedes’ biggest plant in Europe, employing 26,000 on its production lines and 11,000 more in its R&D department.

Working alongside them are 850 apprentices, a fifth of them female. Across Germany, Daimler AG (Mercedes-Benz’s parent group) employs just under 6,000 apprentices on 31 apprenticeship programs, 20 focusing on the complex technical skills required in car and vehicle making and 11 administrative apprenticeships.

“I knew nothing about cars beyond the fact that they have four wheels and a steering wheel,” says Priscilla, who is training in car mechatronic systems, the multidisciplinary fusion of mechanical engineering, electronics and computer science that features in today’s vehicles and in the robots that increasingly make them.

“As far back as I can remember, I was interested in technical things,” she says. “A friend of mine was already doing a mechatronics apprenticeship here and he spoke very positively about it. The chance to earn while training instead of continuing school was also a big draw.”