Austria: More than 400,000 looking for a job: the number of unemployed is rising again

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According to current figures, a good 405,000 people are looking for a job in Austria, which is around 74,000 more than a year ago, said Labor Minister Christine Aschbacher (ÖVP) on Tuesday. The situation on the labor market is "constant but tense and autumn and winter will be challenging. After all, the number of short-time workers fell by 5,800 to 290,000, which shows that companies are increasingly returning to normal operations, Aschbacher told journalists.

Compared to the previous week, the number of unemployed rose by 2,177 for the first time in a long time. However, the year-on-year increase this week was around 1,000 people lower than last week. Of the 405,575 job seekers at the AMS, 345,268 people were registered as unemployed and 60,307 people were in training. Short-time working affected 562,927 men and 447,423 women in the peak phase in April, when over a million people took advantage of this support.

Aschbacher promises goodwill solution

In standard, lawyers pointed out that for people on short-time work in phase I (i.e. from the start of the pandemic) who had previously been employed for less than a full month, the funding will now be reclaimed in full by the Public Employment Service (AMS). This resulted in a rule change in July, with the AMS pointing out that the short-time working rules are negotiated by the social partners.

When asked, Aschbacher assured that there would be a goodwill solution so that the companies concerned would not have to repay the funding. The ministry said there was already an agreement according to which only the funding for the incomplete month would be reclaimed - and work was being done to ensure that the goodwill solution also secures this last funding amount.

Further education initiative

Aschbacher once again advertised the Corona training initiative with a volume of 700 million euros. This should finance 100,000 people for training, 15,000 of them this year and 75,000 in 2021. Strictly speaking, the "Corona Labor Foundation" or "Corona Job Offensive" is an increase in the budget of the Public Employment Service, which uses it to finance retraining and labor foundations can. In this context, Aschbacher spoke of the "largest job offensive of the Second Republic".

Praise for the AMS

Praise for this came from Salzburg's governor Wilfried Haslauer (ÖVP), who was connected via video. He praised the fact that the AMS had 500 more jobs available than feared thanks to the waiver of layoffs and additional staff. Thanks to funds from the Corona job offensive, the AMS budget in Salzburg could almost be doubled from 46 million euros, plus six million from the state budget. This means that one can "be very active in the labor market.

Despite high unemployment, there is "hardly a profession" in which there is no complaint about a shortage of employees. Haslauer sees the reason for this on the one hand in the fact that people on short-time work do not change jobs and that every profession requires very specific qualifications. In addition, the regionality also plays a major role: If someone from the central area of the federal state around Salzburg receives an offer in the Pinzgau, then the distance is a big issue,he admitted. Since the reasonableness must be discussed.