Vocational Training

WACKER needs committed and skilled workers if it is to remain innovative and competitive. We offer our employees a favorable foundation for exploiting their potential and further developing their skills – beginning with vocational training all the way to a variety of advanced training options. There are training and incentives programs available for each qualification and career move.

WACKER has made vocational training a focus of its personnel-development activities. We provide training at the Burghausen, Nünchritz, Stetten, Halle, Cologne and Munich sites in Germany.

The principal facility is the Burghausen Vocational Training Center (BBiW), which was established by WACKER in 1969. The BBiW offers not only initial vocational training, but also retraining and advanced training for young people and experienced staff. Well known beyond the local area, the center believes that its responsibility extends to providing training to non-WACKER staff from 21 partner companies. In 2018, 59 trainees from these companies started courses at the BBiW (2017: 60).

BBiW courses cover 21 vocations. The main focus is on the scientific and technical jobs typically encountered in the chemical, electrical and metalworking sectors. Of the 599 trainees (2017: 601), 488 (2017: 503) were in scientific and technical disciplines and 111 (2017: 98) in business-related fields. Furthermore, WACKER resumed training of IT professionals in 2018, with three trainees starting a course to become IT specialists.

Since 2018, the BBiW has been extending its chemical technician training course to include the new national elective qualification “Digitalization and Networked Production” – so participants already gain digital skills during their training.

After graduating, they have a good chance of finding employment. In the reporting period, WACKER offered jobs to all suitable trainees.

The BBiW’s vocational training is complemented by seven work/study programs to bachelor level: business administration, business IT, computer engineering, engineering management, international business, electrical engineering and process engineering. Here, study at a vocational education institute alternates with quarterly practical phases. For these courses of study, WACKER collaborates with the universities of Mannheim, Heidenheim and Stuttgart, which specialize in work/study programs.

The high quality of WACKER’s training is evidenced by all the awards won by its trainees. In 2017, the Nünchritz site produced Saxony’s best trainee chemical technician – for the sixth time in a row. Fittingly, the Dresden Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) named the Nünchritz site Outstanding Vocational Training Company 2017.

A chemical technician at WACKER Burghausen received the Master Craftsman Prize from the Bavarian state government in 2017. In the same year, the Upper Bavaria Chamber of Industry and Commerce honored another WACKER employee with an award for Best Electronics Technician for Automation Technology. WACKER employees were at the forefront in inter-regional competitions as well: they won two gold and two bronze medals at the Bavarian-Chinese welding competition at the IHK academy in Munich in 2017. What is more, a WACKER trainee was among the winners at the national Equipment Engineering competition in 2018.

52 of the BBiW’s trainees ranked as top graduates in 2017/2018 and received a distinction for passing their courses with a grade of 1.5 (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the best) or higher.

In 2018, WACKER received the Absolventa job portal’s seal of approval for its fair and career-promoting management trainee program. The first five graduates of the program – which had been relaunched two years earlier – successfully completed their training in spring 2018 and WACKER hired them all. A new cycle of the trainee program started in October 2018 – this time for chemistry, sales and digitalization. The trainees receive wide-ranging and flexible training in their specific disciplines, not just in Germany, but at WACKER’s non-German sites as well. During the 18-month program, they get to know the various job profiles in their functional areas and are specifically prepared for future employment with our company.