Labor market frictions are seen in many extensions of the classical human capital theory as a prerequisite for firms financing general training. The labor market reforms in Germany at the beginning of the millennium have therefore been seen by many as a danger to the firms’ willingness to...

In this paper, we use firm-level data to analyse a firmÕs costs of recruiting apprentices in Germany. We find that recruitment costs amount on average to 600 Euros per hire (approximately one month of apprentice pay), but costs are heterogenous across firms and vary strongly with the training...