Ideally, the government should invest in integration from day one, AMS board member Johannes Kopf said on Thursday evening. Currently, some young people have been waiting for years and only come up with stupid ideas, he said in ‘ZiB 2’.
The AMS already has a pilot project for people under 25 that is very successful. The participants mainly come from Syria and Afghanistan. According to Kopf, Syrians currently have a good chance of a positive asylum application. The government must support these people, but also demand them. Integration is a matter of give and take, Kopf said Thursday evening.
In principle, the AMS boss considers the negotiators of the ‘Zuckerl’ coalition as ‘very responsible’. According to his own statement, he had been working there for twenty years. On the one hand, there is currently a need to save, but on the other hand, there is also a need to invest in growth. A contradiction, but action is the antidote to despair, Kopf quoted the environmentally conscious American singer Joan Chandos Baez.
“Not good news for competitiveness”
Despite the recession, Austria is currently experiencing record employment (fewer goods and services are being produced, take note). Kopf explained this by saying that the population would work fewer hours – “not good news for the country’s competitiveness”. There is in fact constant movement in the labor market, for example due to job changes and maternity leave, he said of the latest unemployment figures. He was not optimistic.
As reported, at the end of December 2024, 426,012 people were looking for a job across Austria, meaning the unemployment rate was 8.3 percent. Looking at the federal states, Upper Austria was particularly affected, followed by Salzburg. Of all levels of education, the increase was highest among academics.
At the same time, according to Kopf, they are the ones who often take educational leave, even though there were no plans to promote bar exams. The extension of baby leave was also not the intention. A reform would be needed so that more poorly educated people can benefit from the offer.
Unemployment will likely continue to rise this year. Kopf suspects an increase of 15,000 people.
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.
