More than a quarter of German companies plan to cut apprenticeship spots this year due to a tough economy. Only 15% want to increase them. Small and medium businesses are especially screwed – some don’t get any applicants at all, so over half are looking outside the EU for trainees, but face issues like language, red tape, and expensive housing. Despite the mess, most companies still hire their apprentices after training even if they’re not fully skilled. Almost half of firms couldn’t fill apprentice slots last year, with the worst problems in manufacturing, transport, construction, and retail. The real issue? The kids applying are missing basics—academic skills, work ethic, even being able to show up and read or count! Businesses are blaming schools for not teaching proper skills.

Na, jetzt mal Butter bei die Fische! That’s what you get after years of politics geared at making everything just look shiny for the numbers, not actually fixing anything on the ground. These politicians and the media babble about Fachkräftemangel (“skilled worker shortage”) like it’s some damn weather event nobody could see coming, but for years they cut corners everywhere. Schools are turning kids into screen zombies who can’t think for themselves, write a letter, or get up in the morning—because that’s just how the system likes ‘em: dumb, obedient, and easy to push around.

And now, surprise! The companies complain that their apprentices can’t even bloody read or add up. No wonder—schools have become therapy centers and woke training camps where nobody fails and nobody learns anything useful. On top, what a rotten joke that companies are scrounging for workers outside the EU, as if that’ll patch up the hole! Bring in refugees, flood the bureaucracy—meanwhile, local talent is left to rot or crushed by high rents and useless paperwork. Who caused this circus? Not the small businesses, I’ll tell you that. It’s the fat cats in Berlin and Brussels, selling the same tired “skilled migration” fairy tale while the whole apprenticeship system burns to the ground.

Honestly, just look around in Sachsen—everyone’s sick of empty promises. Teach the kids something real again, stop all this damn bureaucracy, and maybe—just maybe—the shops and factories here wouldn’t look like ghost towns full of job ads nobody answers. This isn’t about young people being “lazy”—it’s about a broken system with its head up its arse. Aber die da oben wollen das gar nicht hören, eh?