Trade at the Top in Training

Cologne, 10.05.07

HDE President Sanktjohanser commits to the training pact - North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) Economics Minister Thoben: Make creativity a core competence - Conference of the Curators of the German Business Community for Vocational Education and Training at the REWE Group Headquarters in Cologne

The German retail sector has more than met its obligations to the training pact and will continue to fulfil its socio-political duties in the present year. "Working with the other key business associations and their member companies, we will continue on this successful course of voluntarily doing our duty and recognising our responsibility to train and qualify young people. We also have the backing of the German federal government to do so," the president of the German Retail Association (HDE), Josef Sanktjohanser, said on Thursday, May 10, in Cologne. With nearly 65,000 new vocational training contracts annually in the three most important trained vocations alone - sales clerks and merchants in retailing and in wholesale and foreign trade - (retail/wholesale) trade counts among the most important fields of vocational training in Germany. Businesses in trade achieved top results last year that were even better than the quite positive economic trend with over 68,000 new vocational training contracts in the past training year. "It is thus not stricter laws that we need, but more flexibility and room for firms to manoeuvre in vocational education and training instead," said Sanktjohanser - also a member of the REWE Group Management Board - to more than 200 commercial training managers at a conference held at the REWE Group Headquarters on behalf of the Curators of the German Business Community for Vocational Education and Training.

REWE Group CEO Alain Caparros had announced earlier at the conference that the company would increase the number of training positions by another 600 to nearly 7,000. "Not only due to changing demographics, vocational education and training along with advancement for young people and the qualifications to prepare them for professional independence are all receiving increasingly central attention at our company," said Caparros.

The Minister of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia for the Economy, SME enterprises, and Energy, Christa Thoben, also spoke in favour of more creativity in vocational education and training.

"In an aging society, we have to adjust to the huge challenges of these changes in all areas," said Ms Thoben. Speaking of the retail sector, she called for making customer orientation and increased customer utility into components of even the vocational training. "Creativity has to be a part of all processes; this will make it a key competitive factor," the minister said. After all, this would determine export capability and with it the competitiveness of German companies on global markets. Thus, it would make creativity into an increasingly important core competence in training as well. The business community would need to appeal to the curiosity of young people to prepare them for a secure future career.

Over 200 commercial training managers from renowned German companies attended the conference entitled "Competence and Creativity - Factors for Enterprise Success" under the umbrella of the Curators of the German Business Community for Vocational Education and Training to explore future aspects of vocational training and human resource development. The theme also covered creative competence as a part of modern corporate culture. Prof. Marcelo da Veiga, Chancellor of Alanus University, described the culture of a company as a basic requirement not only for creative competence and social responsibility. Culture was even an essential condition for economic efficiency. Considering changing demographics and the falling numbers of school leavers, the best strategies were discussed for drawing young adults to well-qualified vocational education and training.

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