Interview with WC boss – “The workers are missing even from the innkeeper around the corner”

“Crown”: Mr. President, when you took office, you said you wanted to listen to businesses. What have businesses been telling you over the past few months?

I travel around the country every day and meet many entrepreneurs who are motivated and competent and want to make a difference. Many people – especially in the construction sector – are currently experiencing difficult circumstances. There is a lack of orders and investors are uneasy due to rising interest rates. Energy and material prices, as well as wage costs and additional wage costs, have also increased enormously.

Is it just the construction sector?

No, but construction is an industry that has a huge impact on others. When there is no construction, there is no need for a plumber or electrician, no painter, no curtains or furniture. Even the innkeeper or the grocer on the corner misses the workers who do not come to eat or get a snack.

What can be done about it?

I see that the public sector has a responsibility to provide additional impetus; after all, it is about creating value for everyone. Construction projects that have already been planned must therefore be put on track even faster. The economy now needs orders from the public sector and from the housing cooperatives, which have been the driving force behind Burgenland’s craft businesses for decades.

Skills shortage problem: How big is the need?

The paradox at the moment is that the lack of orders has actually alleviated the labour shortage somewhat. Nevertheless, capable hands are always welcome in all sectors. In some areas – for example nursing – employees are still badly needed. What really worries me is the question of motivation. The Styrian Chamber of Commerce recently published a survey in which 87 percent of respondents agreed that “performance is the basis of our social welfare”. A warning sign is that just under two thirds of 18 to 25 year olds agree with this statement. Of the older generation – 61 years and older – almost everyone is at 96 percent. We therefore urgently need to change the perception of performance.

Do young people nowadays no longer want to work?

No, I meet many young people in companies every day. But for me, the research is proof that many people no longer believe that they can acquire wealth through their performance. We must shake off this pessimism and replace it with confidence. This requires reforms of the framework conditions. The current situation does not offer interesting incentives for additional work; performance must “pay” in the true sense of the word.

What exactly do you have in mind?

Society must have the feeling that achievements are worthwhile. Anyone who achieves more must clearly feel this on the stock market. On the one hand, taxes on labor and on the other hand, indirect labor costs must be noticeably reduced. In Austria, the tax burden on labor at full employment is currently 47.9 percent. This means that an entrepreneur pays the employee 2,000 euros, but the employee only receives 1,042 euros after deductions. This is extremely stressful for entrepreneurs and demotivating for employees.

But you can also pay more. As is well known, the state of Burgenland shows this with the minimum wage.

I look very critically at the minimum wage; I have discussed this personally with Governor Hans Peter Doskozil several times. Unlike politics, private companies must generate the money themselves, which they can then spend. This also applies to wages and salaries. Every entrepreneur would like to pay more if possible; one way to achieve this would be to reduce the labor tax.

The country has been criticized for competing with the private sector.

I believe that competition against the private sector in one’s own country, financed and supported by the government, is not beneficial, because distortion of competition always comes at the expense of one party. And in this case, it is the side that shapes prosperity in our country. The country, politics and business must therefore work together even more closely; in some areas this is already happening and in others we are working on it. It cannot be that private entrepreneurs are faced with closure because state-owned companies take away the business they have built up over decades.

Back to the topic of skilled workers. There is a lot of advertising for education, does this bear fruit?

Especially towards the end of school, you often hear parents say that their child is ‘just’ doing an internship. There are currently great prospects for students in a wide variety of professions; some professions are real sectors of the future with great career and earning potential. Every young person who completes an internship will find a job worldwide – Austria’s unique and high-quality internship training also contributes to this. The ‘only’ before the word ‘education’ is actually out of place and is at best a relic of times gone by.