A longitudinal study is being conducted to assess the occupational activities and aspirations of young people trained in West Germany's "dual system" of apprenticeship and part-time jobs. Baseline data were gathered from 21,000 students, and approximately 10,000 of them were contacted one and one-half years later. The sample population of the survey was young people in 37 selected occupations in the metal trades, electrical trades, and commerce fields, who completed their in-plant training successfully in 1984. Some of the results of the first-wave inquiry were as follows: (1) 62 percent of those who had completed training said that their training firm had offered them an employment contract, although this varied by training area, number of employees, and type of occupation; (2) six months after completing training, 69 percent were employed, 13 percent were in school or further training, 9 percent were in military service, and 9 percent were unemployed; (3) only about half of the training graduates said that their current job is appropriate to their learned occupation; (4) of those still employed six months after training, 25 percent were no longer with their training establishment, and of those, 47 percent assessed their skills as not being appropriate to their learned occupations; and (5) both employers and trainees preferred part-time employment and part-time school arrangements if employers could not give full employment to all program graduates. (KC)