East Tyrol’s largest employer wants to send more than two-thirds of its employees on short-time work for three months. Given the initial situation, this could fail. The union is pushing for approval.
The news that Liebherr Hausgeräte GmbH wants to send up to 960 employees to the Lienz location on short-time work between October and December caused a lot of unrest. According to Managing Director Holger König, the reasons for this are quickly clear: “The household appliances sector is still in a difficult market environment.”
Demand has “fallen dramatically”
As a result of the declining demand, the refrigerator market “collapsed brutally”. This measure is necessary to adjust the staff capacities accordingly.
The management maintains close contact with the HR department and the works council. At least 1,340 people work at the East Tyrolean location. More than 70 percent of the employees could already register with the Employment Service (AMS) next week.
Plan on the edge, clear pro from the union
It is questionable whether this will continue as planned. At the request of the “Krone”, the AMS confirmed that no short-time work benefit has been approved since July 2022. There is currently no request from Liebherr.
And it continues: “Given the initial situation and the documents available to date, the approval of short-time work benefits is unrealistic.” A setback for the country’s labor market? Sabine Platzer-Werlberger, regional manager of AMS Tirol: “According to current regulations, short-time work can only be granted for exceptional economic situations that can be proven to be temporary. But of course we see the difficult situation for many companies.”
Union urges approval
Reinhold Binder, federal chairman of the production union (PRO-GE), is clearly in favor of this and appeals to Federal Minister Martin Kocher: “Short-time work must be redesigned in such a way that more companies can use it again.”
Liebherr itself expects the situation to ease at the beginning of 2025. A new production line will start then. That is why you do not want to lose your employees. In Lienz too, they want to stick to the expansion plans: a new warehouse and an additional administration building will not open until September 2023.
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.
