Stop kidding yourself.
I’m too impressed by the quality of German workers, and I’ve learned too much in the programs here, to ever claim that professional certifications and academic qualifications are useless. They don’t all carry equal weight, but they do all communicate real traits, experience, or knowledge, that are attractive to customers.
Even possessing a qualification or exam result, from Branch A, can benefit you in Branch B. I am, for instance, not a computer scientist, by certification. I am a logistics manager and freight-forwarding agent. Software companies invariably find that interesting because of what that entails: focus on clear planning and getting concrete results, well-organized, quick-thinking and staying calm under pressure, used to dealing directly with all sorts of people, understanding marketing, logical thinking skills, experience with databases and algorithms, etc.
People who have no qualification like to claim anyone could get one, but then they should prove it in the attempt. My own apprenticeship program took 2-3 years and 30% fail the exam, on the first attempt.
#, bullshit walks.
Try to get professional insurance without a formal certificate. You will pay more, due to being a higher risk. If you pay enough, it’s probably cheaper, mid-term, to go back and get the paper.
Our car insurance even offers cheaper rates to engineers because they’ve crunched the numbers. It can effect your life insurance costs. And people will pay a Meister more than a Journeyman, and a CPA more than a bookkeeper, for the same work.
Less would bring more
Getting rid of government licensing doesn’t lead to a free-for-all, where everyone can just self-elect themselves as a neurosurgeon and start cutting peoples’ heads open. It leads to more private qualifications, to fill the information gap, with branding.
If anything, private qualifications are harder to acquire, not easier, since they have to maintain signal, to stay on the market. That is why the IHK-lead (Chamber of Commerce) apprenticeship system, common to Germanic countries, is one of the best in the world and people everywhere are trying to copy it: the businesses, who hire and pay the apprentices, determine the curriculum, and decide which persons qualify.
Most qualifications are already private and not covered by licensing laws. The market demands them; the market receives them.