The German Legislator has partially opened the handicraft market with the beginning of 2004. The fear of a declining availability of traineeships was the decisive political argument to prevent a stronger deregulation of this market. From theoretical viewpoint it is unclear in which direction the deregulation of commodities markets will influence the labour demand. The paper presents empirical results which are based on 180 Lüneburg handicraft enterprises at the end of 2004 ...