This study explores school-to-work transitions in Germany, aiming to achieve a richer understanding of the complexity of labour market entry trajectories while focusing on transition measures. The term transition measures refers to additional training courses that complement the regular vocational education and training system of firm-based or school-based qualification routes. The contribution of supplementary training measures to the school-to-work transitions of young adults is a controversial issue. While programmes aim to ease the transitions of low-skilled youth in the training and labour market, critics point to the risks of long-term subsidised careers or fragmented employment trajectories in subsequent years. By applying sequence analysis to administrative data of the Federal Employment Agency, individual trajectories of a cohort of school leavers with an at-most intermediate school-leaving certificate are analysed for the period 2008 to 2014. The results show a complex picture of ten distinct school-to-work transition patterns. Youth passing through transition measures tend to experience a less continuous but still purposeful transition pathway. We also identify a small number of youth experiencing at-risk trajectories characterised by a highly discontinuous transition process, which points to sustained detachment from the training and labour markets.

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The article investigates entry-stage employment trajectories of young people in Germany, asking whether transitions into continuous employment indicate successful labour market integration. Applying a novel multidimensional approach to precariousness to individuals' employment and household trajectories, we understand entry-stage employment trajectories holistically. The balanced-panel sample is drawn from the German SocioEconomic Panel, with a focus on young men and women between 15 and 25 years of age in the first year of the sample period who had been employed at least once (n = 1360). Dual-channel sequence-cluster analysis reveals considerable variation in the precariousness of young people's entry-stage employment. While almost all young men and women experience periods of precariousness, the durations vary substantially. Precarious employment or precarious living conditions frequently occur during education. Our results confirm that individuals with disrupted employment trajectories are seldom successfully integrated into the labour market and frequently experience precarious employment. In previous research, transitions into continuous employment have been understood as the hallmark of successful labour market integration. This holds true for young women but not for young men, who experienced continuous and precarious entry-stage employment. To correctly identify young men's successful labour market integration, additional information about their employment precariousness is required.

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