According to a recent survey by EY, Austria’s skilled labor shortage is at an all-time high. Only one in five companies in Austria plans to hire additional people in the coming months. Recruiting skilled workers is a major challenge for the vast majority of companies.
Even as employment in the country continues to grow, 15 percent of companies plan to cut jobs. Every second company complains about a drop in turnover. According to the survey, two-thirds of Austrian companies see the shortage of skilled workers as a huge risk to the company’s future.
For the study “Employment and Skills Shortage in Austria”, the audit and consultancy firm EY interviewed more than 600 managers of medium-sized companies with 30 to 2,000 employees across Austria.
Almost every occupational sector affected
“There is hardly a sector of the Austrian labor market that is currently not in need of personnel,” says Erich Lehner, who is responsible for SMEs as Managing Partner at EY Austria. The tourism industry, the health sector, but also the transport sector and trade are particularly hard hit.
Loss of turnover due to a shortage of skilled workers
More than half of all companies (51 percent) say they experience a drop in turnover due to staff shortages. The situation for companies has therefore deteriorated compared to last year, when the share of companies with a drop in turnover was 39 percent. At least one in six domestic companies is currently complaining about a sharp drop in turnover of more than five percent due to a shortage of skilled workers.
The effects of the shortage of skilled labor on turnover are particularly pronounced in the transport and energy sector (64 percent), in the health sector (59 percent) and in the financial and services sector (54 percent). The tourism industry is also losing turnover (50 percent) due to a lack of suitable personnel.
Regional differences
There are regional differences in the shortage of skilled labour: it is most pronounced in companies in Lower Austria (53 percent have “large”) and Upper Austria (50 percent find it “very difficult” to find staff). Finding good staff is also difficult in Styria (46 percent) and Vorarlberg (46 percent). The situation is still best in Salzburg and Vienna – but here too more than 30 percent complain of great difficulties in recruiting skilled workers.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
