But if employers risk losing a newly trained worker, they can also hire skilled personnel trained elsewhere. Main issues related to training The existence of national standards for each of the roughly 400 recognized vocations suggests a large amount of uniformity, or at least comparability among the various qualifications. The quality and length of vocational training, however, varies greatly among vocations. Most occupations require 3 to 3.5 years of training, but a large number involve only 2 years, and in others training can be completed within 1 year. A company may however choose to limit training to fulfilling the minimum requirements, so that more time is available for productive work.
Some companies can afford to incur considerable expense to train for future demand.
Others need at least to break even in balancing training costs with profits gained through the productive work of apprentices. During the seventies and eighties, the government set up subsidy programs to try to ease the shortage of apprenticeship positions in some industries. The programs thus risked strengthening training related to current demand for inexpensive labour, and expanding training in vocations for which training already exceeded the future demand for skilled personnel. Companies and vocational schools can clash over the coordination of the timing and content of training programs. Firms and apprentices often feel the school courses have little relation to the companies' training requirements and do not cover trade-related theory adequately.