"In this paper, we investigate the short-run effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on vocational education and training after the first lockdown in the year 2020 in Germany. We exploit rich establishment-level survey data to estimate the causal effects of the pandemic by applying difference-in-differences estimation, contrasting trends in outcomes between establishments more and less negatively affected by the pandemic. We find that, due to the pandemic, establishments not only trained less but also retained less of their recent graduates. Our findings foster concerns of the pandemic to increase future skills shortage in the labour market and dampen young peoples' career prospects."

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