The first pretzels slipped a bit, but after a few repetitions, the governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) and the economics senator Stephan Schwarz (independent) got it going. A trainee apprentice showed them how to do it, master baker Christa Lutum explained the individual work steps up to the finished pretzel.
For Franziska Giffey and Stephan Schwarz, the visit to Lutum’s spelled bakery in Charlottenburg was the second stop on their tour of a total of three handicraft businesses in the city. Listening, laying tiles, baking pretzels, but above all promoting the craft and training – that was the program of the two politicians on Tuesday.
The figures show that advertising is necessary. 7000 training places are still open for the current year, said Giffey. Economics Senator Schwarz warned of a skills shortage of several hundred thousand in the future.
The causes are known. The academization rate has increased steadily in recent years, almost 50 percent of all school leavers begin a course of study, at the beginning of the millennium it was still around a third. And although craft trades are held in high esteem according to various surveys, it is these companies in particular that have problems filling training positions.
Giffey: Too fixated on academic training
Master baker Lutum therefore called for an “education offensive” in conversation with Giffey and Schwarz. In the grammar schools, little or no attention is drawn to the possibilities of an apprenticeship. As a small, specialized bakery – Lutum only bakes with spelt – they have no problems finding new blood. “But what bothers me is the arrogance with which some people look down on the craft.”
A sentence that, at least yesterday, met with broad approval. “We’re way too fixated on academic education,” Giffey said. A round table with the participation of all responsible Senate administrations is currently investigating how career orientation in schools, which largely came to a standstill during Corona, can be restarted and made more diversified. The Governing Mayoress also announced that the best journeymen of the year would be honored in the Red Town Hall in autumn.
Master baker Lutum calls for more internships
Economic Senator Stephan Schwarz, himself President of the Berlin Chamber of Crafts from 2003 to 2019, agreed and also held the companies responsible. “The companies have to tell good stories, market themselves more.”
At the end of the visit, Christa Lutum had two more ideas: more internships during school and a reform of Hartz IV to provide the many training opportunities, Lutum said.
And the fact that a training salary can in some cases be credited to a family’s Hartz IV rate deters many. But that is a federal task, Lutum admitted.
