Apprenticeship and Youth Unemployment

In France, two years after school completion and getting the same diploma, the employmentrate of apprentices is about 15 percentage points higher than that of vocational students.Despite this difference, this paper shows that there is almost no difference between theprobability of getting a callback from employers for unemployed youth formerly eitherapprentices or vocational students. This result indicates that the higher employment rate ofapprentices does not rely, in the French context, on better job access of those who do notremain in their training firms. The estimation of a job search and matching model showsthat the expansion of apprenticeship has very limited effects on youth unemployment ifthis is not accompanied by an increase in the retention of apprentices in their training firm