AMS boss Johannes Kopf expects a difficult situation on the labor market in 2024. Despite the downturn, many companies are currently retaining their employees so that they can immediately start working on more assignments. At the same time, other companies have too few employees.
If the economy picks up again, this will not be immediately visible on the labor market, Kopf said on Tuesday. The current unemployment figures were presented earlier. According to this data, almost 400,000 people were registered with the AMS as unemployed or in training at the end of December. The unemployment rate was 7.8 percent. In this context, Kopf points out that 40 percent of employees in the tourism sector work somewhere else approximately every two years, which is unusual.
The opposition accuses Kocher of ‘money laundering’.
Labor Minister Martin Kocher (ÖVP) spoke of positive developments, for example among the long-term unemployed, and of “only a slight increase” compared to the previous year. Opposition politicians such as social spokesperson Josef Muchitsch of the SPÖ and social spokesperson Dagmar Belakowitsch of the FPÖ subsequently accused him of “money laundering” and “appeasement”. The population will be bled dry, while major corporations, donors and federal government clients will benefit, Belakowitsch said.
December 2023 unemployment figures:
NEOS social spokesperson Gerald Loacker points out that there are still many more vacancies than before the Corona crisis. “The announcement that job seekers will receive extra money in addition to the AMS money in expensive AMS training courses is ineffective and even counterproductive, making it unattractive to get started quickly,” he criticized.
On Tuesday, the Chamber of Labor and the ÖGB called for higher unemployment benefits, an inflation adjustment for all unemployment benefits and a new calculation scheme.
Industry: “Encourage” extra work
As expected, the Chamber of Commerce has other demands: Secretary General Karlheinz Kopf wants indirect labor costs to be reduced. The trade association believes that “companies and the labor factor should be relieved”. Furthermore, people who work a few hours should be “encouraged” to work overtime.
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.
