Suddenly they are gone.

Tens of thousands of young people in Germany withdrew from normal life during the corona pandemic.

They finish school, maybe even their apprenticeship – but then they disappear.

You don't start a permanent job.

You don't go to school.

You don't study.

And the experts are puzzled as to where all the young people have gone.

Patrick Bernau

Responsible editor for economy and "value" of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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Alexander Wulfers

Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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The disappearance first made itself felt in the training companies.

For years there have been fewer and fewer school leavers, if only because the number of births had been falling for decades.

In the pandemic years, however, the shortage of applicants has become particularly noticeable.

Last September, up to forty percent of all training places in Germany remained unused.

Even the automotive supplier Continental, one of the largest corporations in Germany, is feeling the loss of applicants.

In 2020 he was no longer able to fill all training positions with suitable applicants, in 2021 40 of more than 500 positions remained vacant, said a spokeswoman for the FAS - and: "We cannot give any reasons for this, as these would be purely speculative."

So the young people don't get on well with the training companies.

But they don't show up at the university either, student numbers are stagnating.

The number of participants in voluntary services is also not growing.

Young people had a hard time going abroad during the pandemic.

They're just gone.

And anyone who asks the responsible authorities about the missing young people always hears the same thing: they have already noticed the disappearance, they are worried, but they do not want to say anything publicly about it, they still know too little themselves.

Around 200,000 young people are missing

One thing is certain: there are tens of thousands of young people.

Every year, the European statistical office Eurostat calculates how many young people are neither working nor studying anywhere.

According to preliminary figures, their share almost doubled in Germany in the first year of the pandemic, 2020.

Roughly speaking, there are now around 200,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 19 who do something different than is usual for their age.

This even surpasses the old records from the noughties, when the labor market was difficult and training positions were rare.

In every senior year, there could be an average of two or three students lost this way.

After all, one speaks about the lost young people: Bernd Fitzenberger.

He works at the Federal Employment Agency and heads its research institute.

He too currently has more questions than answers.

"We know above all where the young people are not," he says.

Some stayed at school, repeated their final year or added another to a school-leaving certificate.

But that cannot explain why so many young people are missing.

Rather long lockdown than long Covid

Do they all suffer from the late effects of Corona?

That is hardly imaginable.

First of all, only in Germany so many young people have disappeared, in the other European countries the European statistics do not recognize this phenomenon.

In addition, not so many young people had Corona in 2020 that the disease itself could make so many unable to work.

It is more likely that the lockdowns have played a big part.

"The problem is more of a long lockdown than a long Covid," believes pediatrician Jakob Maske, who speaks for the Federal Association of Pediatricians.