Pay is one way to compare Ausbildung trades. Übernahme — whether your training employer actually keeps you on afterward — is arguably a better one, since it’s the number that determines whether your Ausbildung converts into a real job. Real, sector-level data exists for this, published by IAB (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung), Germany’s federal labour market research institute. Here’s what it actually shows.
The overall picture
In IAB’s most recent sector-by-sector breakdown of company-based training in Germany, 76% of apprentices who completed their training were hired on permanently by their training company — either directly or elsewhere within the same organisation. That figure varies by region too: 78% in eastern Germany against 75% in the west.
The sectors with the best Übernahme rates
| Sector | Übernahme rate |
|---|---|
| Public administration & non-profit organisations | 91% |
| Mining, energy, water & waste management | 88% |
| Information & communication | 87% |
Finance and insurance also feature strongly among the higher-retention sectors in this data — consistent with the very high tariff pay both Bankkaufmann/-frau and Kaufmann/-frau für Versicherungen und Finanzanlagen command, covered in our piece on Ausbildung in banking and insurance.
The sectors with the weakest rates
| Sector | Übernahme rate |
|---|---|
| Agriculture & forestry | 39% |
| Hospitality & food service | 67% |
| Retail & vehicle repair | 66% |
The gap here is large — a trainee in public administration is more than twice as likely to be kept on as one in agriculture. That doesn’t mean those lower-retention sectors are bad training choices; it usually reflects smaller, more seasonal employers who simply can’t guarantee permanent headcount the way a large public-sector institution can. See our piece on whether retail Ausbildung is worth it for how that plays out in one specific trade.
Company size matters as much as sector
IAB’s data also breaks Übernahme down by employer size, and the pattern is just as sharp as the sector split: apprentices at companies with 500 or more employees were kept on 90% of the time, against 59% at companies with one to nine employees. If retention is your priority, the employer’s size is worth weighing alongside its industry.
Why we’re not giving you a “top 15” here
Unlike pay, where BIBB publishes occupation-by-occupation tariff figures for hundreds of individual trades, Übernahme data of this quality is tracked at the sector (Wirtschaftszweig) level, not broken out by individual Ausbildungsberuf. So “which specific trade has the best Übernahme rate” isn’t a question with a clean, sourced answer — but “which sector” is, and that’s what’s above. Treat a specific trade’s real chances as somewhere between its sector average and its individual employer’s track record; ask any employer directly what share of last year’s apprentices they kept on.
How this fits with pay
Retention and pay aren’t the same measure, but they tend to move together for the sectors covered on this site: finance and insurance rank strongly on both. See our piece on the highest-paying Ausbildung professions in Germany for the pay side, and our roundup of which Ausbildung trades are actually in shortage for a third, separate lens — labour scarcity, which doesn’t always line up with either pay or retention.
Explore sector-specific programmes on our Ausbildung programmes hub, or get in touch to talk through which trade and employer profile fits what you’re looking for.
Where this comes from
IAB (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung), Kennzahlen zur betrieblichen Ausbildung in Deutschland (iab.de/daten/kennzahlen-zur-betrieblichen-ausbildung-in-deutschland-2023/).
