Germany fact of the day

From a very good article by Edward Luce in FT which explores the attractions of German economic model as America grapples with stagnant or declining manufacturing and a crisis in its human skill development channels, 

Germany channels roughly half of all high-school students into the vocational education stream from the age of 16. In the US that would be seen as too divisive, even un-American. More than 40 per cent of Germans become apprentices.

As America suffers a big unemployment crisis, with no end in sight, structural issues like skills mismatches have been blamed as being responsible,

Almost half of Americans with a degree are in jobs that do not require one... Fifteen per cent of taxi drivers in the US have a degree, up from 1 per cent in 1970. Likewise, 25 per cent of sales clerks are graduates, against 5 per cent in 1970. An astonishing 5 per cent of janitors now have a bachelor’s degree. They must offer endless nocturnal moments to repent those student loans.