BIBB Skill Profiles of the Occupational Training Segments 2019

The skill profiles are based on analyses of 338 dual and school-based training occupations and reflect the differences among training occupations in the type and level of skills to be acquired during training.
Four skill profiles are distinguished: an occupation-specific profile with low to moderate cognitive demands, an occupation-specific profile with high cognitive demands, a firm-specific profile, and a general profile with high cognitive demands. This classification is based on characteristics of training occupations related to occupational specificity, firm specificity, and the cognitive requirement level of training occupations.
The skill profiles enable analyses of occupational segmentation in vocational education and training and the associated social inequalities in access to and in the course of training, as well as the labour market trajectories after training.

Origin/Creator:	Koneberg, Filiz; Rohrbach-Schmidt, Daniela, Friedrich, Anett (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung)
Method/Structure:	The analysis of skill profiles is based on a dataset of training occupations that includes characteristics of 338 fully qualifying training occupations in Germany (data as of 2019). This dataset comprises 317 dual training occupations under the Vocational Training Act/Crafts and Trades Regulation (BBiG/HwO) and the 21 largest health, education, and social services occupations (GES occupations). The GES occupations account for a large portion of vocational education and training in the so-called “school-based” training occupations (see Koneberg et al. 2025; Friedrich et al. 2026). The skill profiles of the 338 training occupations are identified using latent profile analysis based on the characteristics of occupational specificity, firm specificity, and the cognitive requirement level. The occupational specificity of the training occupations is based on a measure that quantifies the specificity of occupations by analysing the proportions of overlapping core competencies across occupations. The firm specificity of the training occupations is measured based on the structural model of the training regulation. The cognitive requirement level is operationalized using an indicator from the Occupational Psychology Service (BPS) of the Federal Employment Agency, which reflects “the level of cognitive abilities required to successfully learn and practice an occupation” and is available at the BIBB (see Koneberg et al. 2025; Friedrich et al. 2026). The latent profile analyses identify four distinct skill profiles among the occupations under consideration. The clustering of these four skill profiles highlights the structural similarities in the skill sets of training occupations, regardless of their occupational differences. For each training occupation, the classification probability to each of the four skill profiles is calculated. Training occupations are assigned to the skill profiles for which they exhibit the highest classification probability, so that each training occupation is assigned to only one profile. In a few cases, training occupations exhibit similarly high classification probabilities for multiple profile. In such cases, the profile with the highest probability is assigned. The skill profiles enable analyses of occupational segmentation in vocational education and training and the associated social inequalities in access to, in the course of, and labour market trajectories of vocational education and training. Koneberg et al. (2025) and Friedrich et al. (2026) show that the skill profiles are associated with differences in the average importance of investment- and production-oriented aspects of vocational training (retention), training rewards, and social prestige (gratification), as well as the proportion of trainees with lower or higher school-leaving certificates.
Development/implementation for Germany:	The analysis unit is defined by the training occupation based on its official title, e.g., Gärtner/-in (alle Fachrichtungen) (Gardener, all specializations). This analysis unit is more detailed than the 5-digit codes in the German Classification of Occupations 2010 (KldB); consequently, the 338 training occupations are distributed across only 248 KldB 5-digit codes.

BIBB Skill Profiles of the Occupational Training Segments 2019

No data available.