From the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to the end of 2022, the public sector spent approximately €9.82 billion on short-time work subsidies. Including outstanding commitments, the budget burden at the end of December 2022 was approximately EUR 9.91 billion.
An easing of the corona pandemic and stricter access rules for short-time work resulted in a sharp fall in costs over the past year.
According to the Ministry of Labor, a total of almost 5.5 billion euros was paid out in short-time work subsidies in 2020 and about 3.7 billion euros in 2021, in 2022 only about 626 million euros were added, according to Labor Minister Martin Kocher ( ÖVP).
Graph: course of short-time work in Austria from March 2020 to May 2022
The number of short-time work people funded between March 2020 and the end of December 2022 totaled 1.335 million people. The average personal short-time working duration in this period was 118 days.
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.
