Skilled workers are missing everywhere. So shouldn’t high school graduates think about an apprenticeship instead of going to university? The salary is decisive in this decision. In the end, academics are still ahead. However, a career as a master craftsman can certainly be compared to going to university.
The saying comes from those who have just paid another craftsman’s bill: Someone earns a buck. And the question that follows is: How can it be that young people are so difficult to find in professions that seem to be doing good business? There is a shortage of skilled workers everywhere, companies are giving up because they cannot find a successor and that with good pay – what is wrong here?
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When it comes to the training allowance, the impression of good pay is correct – sometimes: The prospective carpenter started life in 2021 with a proud 1252 euros a month. The trainees in the public sector were also doing well with just over 1000 euros. Ship mechanics (1400 euros), middle-ranking police officers (1330 euros), bank, insurance and real estate clerks (around 1100 euros) were even better paid.
In contrast, students of the same age are mostly poor people. Even those with the Bafög maximum rate have to make ends meet with a maximum of 861 euros per month. Provided, unlike most trainees, they no longer live with their parents. So does demanding training in a trade or in the office beat the cramming in overcrowded lecture halls?
Calculated over a lifetime, the tide is turning. The following applies here: Only master craftsmen earn almost the same as an average academic. This was calculated by the Tübingen Institute for Applied Economic Research (IAW). After that, the employed academic will receive a salary of around 1.45 million euros until his 65th birthday. The master craftsman or technician is only three percent lower at 1.41 million euros. But the journeyman has to budget with around 962,000 euros.
If the academic retires early at the age of 60, the financial benefit of his studies will melt away. This is the price for the long education at the university. Because up to their 60th birthday, master craftsmen or technicians earn even more than university graduates.
From the point of view of the IAW, studying with a subsequent academic career suggests training with a corresponding career in monthly salary at best from the mid-30s. Until then, the craftsmen and employees had earned more than the academics thanks to their early training. This is a relevant criterion for anyone who wants to start a family at a young age.
In fact, however, not only the qualification decides on the wages of master craftsmen and technicians. Small companies usually pay less than large ones, big cities beat villages, additional qualifications are rewarded differently. Above all, however, there are enormous differences between the sectors. There, the income ratio of those who have been trained and those who have studied has changed. The decisive factor is then how popular the academic graduates are.
The platform halt.de did the math. Take the technicians, for example: After three to six years and 40 hours per week, the electronics technician gets 38,038 euros a year and the mechatronics technician 36,969 euros. This is close to the colleagues who, instead of completing a three-year apprenticeship, completed an equally long bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering. The situation is different for employed master mechatronics technicians. He has undergone extensive further training and after nine years of work he has earned an average of 53,100 euros. That is just under 7,000 euros less than the average academic earned in 2021.
But compared to the master’s degree in mechanical engineering, he is a small light in terms of salary. After five years of study, he starts his career with an average starting salary of 50,000 euros. The young dental technician also wishes he might have studied medicine after all: it’s only 31,045 euros gross per year for him. The dentist, who quickly doubles, laughs.
The comparison becomes more difficult with the humanities scholars. With which training occupations could Germanists, art historians or social scientists be measured? It doesn’t matter whether you’re studying or training, the following also applies everywhere: Women are paid less than men. In an academic profession, according to current figures, it is on average 650,000 euros less than male colleagues over the course of their lives, although they are less likely to take long child breaks.
High school graduates should not draw a fallacy when choosing a job: where there is a particularly large lack of skilled workers, the pay is not better. On the contrary, criticizes the Federal Employment Agency. According to their data, the employees there often earn below average – on average a few hundred euros less than the average wage of all skilled workers.
This applies, for example, to hearing aid acousticians and orthopedic and rehabilitation technicians – all demanding professions that are close to people and are also of interest to high school graduates. If it wasn’t for a gross monthly salary of just an average of 2,500 euros. Month after month, they even earn around 1,000 euros less than a road builder, a career aspiration that high school graduates only very rarely have.
