A Trained Apprentice Saves a Swiss Employer Up to CHF 17,860 on the Next Hire

TLDR: On average, Swiss apprentices earn back their training cost before they qualify, and the larger return arrives afterwards, when a trained apprentice fills a seat that an external hire would cost far more to fill.

An average Swiss apprentice returns CHF 4,540 a year while still in training

The Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training (SFUVET) published its fifth cost–benefit survey in November 2025, commissioned by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation. It covers the 2022/23 training year and draws on a dataset of 6,655 training companies and 3,655 non-training companies. The method values the work an apprentice does at the wages of the unskilled or skilled workers who would otherwise do it, then subtracts apprentice wages, trainer time, materials and other costs.

On that basis the average apprenticeship year cost a company CHF 27,990 in gross costs and produced CHF 32,530 of output, leaving a net benefit of CHF 4,540 per apprentice per year. Around 71 per cent of apprenticeships finish the training period in the black, and 80 per cent of training companies say they are fairly or very satisfied with the balance.

Scaled to the country, the 176,183 dual apprenticeship contracts running in 2022/23 cost Swiss companies about CHF 4.93 billion and produced about CHF 5.73 billion of work, a net gain of roughly CHF 800 million. The authors attach a confidence interval of plus or minus CHF 129 million and warn that the extrapolation carries real uncertainty, so read the national figure as an order of magnitude.

Programme length decides most of the return

Across a full programme the average net benefit is CHF 9,630 for the two-year Federal Vocational Education and Training (VET) Certificate (EBA in German, AFP in French), CHF 13,940 for a three-year Federal VET Diploma (EFZ or CFC) and CHF 17,510 for a four-year diploma. The report notes that the final apprenticeship year usually raises net benefit, so longer programmes give the company more time with a nearly qualified person on the floor.

The four-year figure is significantly higher than in the previous survey for 2016/17. SFUVET attributes the rise partly to occupations that moved from three to four years, and adds that the simplified, improved questionnaire may also have contributed. The two- and three-year results are statistically in line with 2016/17.

Occupation matters as much as duration. Every three-year occupation analysed shows a neutral to positive net benefit. Among four-year programmes, information technologists and automotive mechatronics technicians improved markedly, and the report notes that automotive mechatronics now shows a net benefit during training. The polymechanic apprenticeship, a core technical profile in MedTech manufacturing and pharma production, still costs more than it produces during training, by a narrower margin than in the 2016/17 and 2009/10 rounds. For that profile the business case rests on the years after the certificate.

The larger return arrives after graduation, as the hire a company avoids

SFUVET also prices what happens when the trained apprentice stays. Hiring a skilled worker from the external market means paying for the search and then for the months in which that person learns the company’s systems, people and procedures. The survey asked companies for those costs directly and found that they rise with company size.

SFUVET calls the second figure the recruitment opportunity return. It accounts for apprentices who leave after qualifying and for external hires who often leave again soon after joining, and it comes to CHF 13,490 per apprenticeship on average across all company sizes. For a company of 100 people or more, that is CHF 17,860 on top of whatever the apprentice earned the company during training.

Recruiters see the other side of this table every week. The CHF 22,130 covers recruitment and induction as companies reported them. It leaves out the weeks a seat stays empty while the search runs, and in a regulated company those weeks carry their own price. A batch release that waits for a qualified signatory or a quality system running one reviewer short gets noticed in an inspection before it shows in a budget. Edward Galle has argued that the widely quoted replacement-cost percentages need their method and vintage attached. The SFUVET table comes with both.

Five in six Swiss companies leave this return on the table

Among Swiss companies with at least two employees, 16.5 per cent trained apprentices in 2022/23 while the remaining 83.5 per cent stayed out of apprenticeship training. Some of the non-trainers would lack the approval to train at all. Asked why, they ranked “not enough time for training” first, followed by covering their skilled-worker needs through further training of existing staff, being too specialised, and seeing no foreseeable need in the field.

Apprentices leaving after qualifying, a shortage of applicants for apprenticeship places and apprentices spending too little time in the company all ranked low. The barrier, in the companies’ own ranking, is time.

Those that do train are shifting their reasons. The strongest motive is still a sense that training is a shared duty of the business community. The second is the wish to train skilled workers who stay with the company over the long term, which has gained weight since the previous survey, and the authors link that shift to the shortage of skilled labour. Using apprentices as productive staff during training has gained weight too. Saving recruitment costs, the return Exhibit 2 measures, has barely moved as a reason companies give.

Training quality is uneven, and the plan fits most companies

For the first time the survey measured in-house training quality. Companies answered eight questions and were grouped into five types. More than three quarters belong to the three types that deliver satisfactory to very good training, and a quarter deliver excellent training. Almost 15 per cent rate themselves below average on every dimension.

The federal training plans hold up well against company reality. On average, companies consider 82 per cent of the content in their occupation’s training plan relevant to their own operations, and 19 per cent teach additional qualifications beyond it. The vocational baccalaureate taken alongside the apprenticeship (BM 1) lowers the company’s net benefit by around CHF 3,000, because the apprentice spends more days in school, and the result stays positive.

Region matters little. All major regions show a positive net benefit, and the only statistically significant gap runs between the Lake Geneva region and Ticino. Lake Geneva comes out ahead on the strength of higher productive output from skilled tasks, which reflects slightly higher skilled-worker wages in the region.

How a regulated employer can put these numbers to work

The survey supports a simple portfolio view of hiring. Roles with a federal apprenticeship behind them, such as commercial employees, pharmacy assistants, medical practice assistants, logistics professionals, automation technicians and IT specialists, can be grown in-house for roughly the cost of the external hire they replace, often with a gain during training. Roles that need a degree plus years of regulated experience, such as a qualified person, a pharmacovigilance lead or a regulatory affairs manager, still have to be bought on the open market, and those searches deserve the full recruiting budget.

The next step depends on who is reading.

• An SME owner taking a first apprentice can start with one place and a named trainer whose hours are planned into the year. Lack of time is the reason non-training companies rate highest, so that is the line to budget first. The cantonal vocational training office issues the training permit and advises on the steps.
• An HR lead at a company of 100 or more can price the last three external hires for each apprenticeable profile against Exhibit 2, including the weeks each seat stood empty, and compare the result with the SFUVET occupation-level evaluations, which give costs and output by training year.
• A quality or regulatory head can map which roles in the quality system are apprenticeable and which require a degree and regulated experience, so that training places and external searches are planned as one staffing budget.

Apprentices cover the profiles a company can grow. For the specialist seats it has to fill from outside, especially in pharma, MedTech and finance, see how Edward Galle works with regulated employers.

References

1. Gehret A, Kuhn A, Schweri J. Is training apprentices worthwhile? Company perspectives on costs, benefits and training quality 2025. Zollikofen: Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training SFUVET, November 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17713684
2. SFUVET. Company perspectives on costs, benefits and training quality 2025 (survey page). https://www.sfuvet.swiss/research/cost-benefit-survey/2025
3. EHB. Kosten, Nutzen und Ausbildungsqualität aus Sicht der Betriebe 2025, occupational evaluations. https://www.ehb.swiss/forschung/kosten-nutzen-erhebung/2025
4. Swiss Federal Council. Lehrbetriebe investieren in ihren Nachwuchs, press release, 17 November 2025. https://www.admin.ch/de/newnsb/Bi48pNeH01vsTuQx-M0WJ