If the job outlook for young people is as bad as the trade and services union Ver.di depicts in a new television spot, then Germany has some serious problems.

To a soundtrack of hard-core music, the one-minute ad shows teens preparing to commit various forms of suicide. One girl slings a rope over a rafter, another presses a razor blade into her wrist -- the camera then shifts to the sink full of water as a drop of blood trickles down. In another scene, a boy pulls a gun out of a desk and puts it in his mouth.

The screen goes black at the end and a second later white writing informs viewers that the country is lacking more than 150,000 trainee positions, leaving hundreds of thousands of school graduates without a job.

"Youth need a future, youth need prospects," is the tag line on the ad, and the union bosses are very happy with it.

Many Germans and top-ranking politicians quite clearly are not. Since the ad started airing on the video music channel VIVA over the weekend, the criticism has come pouring in.

Spot "aggressive and excessive"

"The situation in the apprenticeship market is dramatic," said Klaus Börger, Berlin's education senator. "But one should stay grounded, and not employ such methods."

Angela Merkel of the conservative Christian Democrats, echoed the thoughts of many angry Bild readers, who wrote in to Germany’s mass daily on Monday to complain about the tastelessness of the ad.

"The spot is aggressive and excessive," said Merkel, one of the government’s biggest critics when it comes to the lack of trainee positions.

Given the economic malaise Germany finds itself in, industry has been forced to cut back on the number of apprenticeships and trainee positions in order to save money.

But critics accuse industry of turning its back on a tradition of vocational training that has contributed heavily to the country's reputation for producing some of the highest-quality products in the world. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s government has issued several ultimatums demanding companies do more to help out Germany’s jobless youth.

Earlier this month union, industry and government representatives struck a compromise which foresaw fines if companies didn’t create thousands of positions by the end of the year.

In an effort to increase public pressure on industry and ride the general wave of resentment with the government's handling of the dire situation, Ver.di took its controversial campaign to the airwaves.

Provocation attracts attention

Mark Hagen, a representative for the union’s youth section, admitted to DW-RADIO that the ad is provocative. "We’ve tried to shake awake German society and politicians and the entire economy who should be responsible for providing enough training placements for all the young people."

"We’ve been trying to get politics and the economy to do something ... for years and years by different means," he said, but so far nothing has changed. That’s why Ver.di decided to adopt more drastic means to call attention to the lack of trainee positions.

"Those who find the film too dramatic, or think it encourages suicide, need to think: It is the lack of a future or a perspective that fills young people with doubt," Ver.di said in a union statement over the weekend after its representatives approved airing the film.

Union "underestimates effect" of ad

Those who work with teens and young people who have contemplated suicide said the union’s message doesn't get past recommendations on how to kill yourself.

"They underestimate the actual effect of such a spot," psychologist Franz-Josef Kimmig told DW-WORLD.

For someone who is emotionally stable, the video will do nothing more than shock, said Kimmig, who counsels young people who've attempted suicide and gives advice to their friends and relatives.

"But those who are unstable, who already have considered suicide, may be pushed to take that step," he said.

Recipe for suicide

"What I find especially bad is that the video clearly shows how to commit suicide" said Kimmig. "You can almost imitate the techniques."

But Hagen disagreed. He said the union has carefully considered the campaign and tested it on young people before airing it.

"The largest part of the young people we showed it to... understood quite well what we wanted. And they said, yes, it is a very harsh way to show this topic, but it’s correct in the content and it is definitely a way to reach young people and just to shake the tree a little bit," Hagen explained.

Shaking things up is exactly what the union set out to do, and that’s why despite the criticism Ver.di is unwilling to withdraw the spot. In fact, Hagen and other representatives would even like to see the ad broadcast on several channels for a wider reach.