The recovery in the domestic labor market weakened in the first quarter of this year. According to Statistics Austria, 4,420,300 people were at work on Wednesday, 46,300 or 1.1 percent more than in the same period last year. But the number of unemployed also rose slightly to 257,600. Men are mainly looking for full-time jobs, while women are often looking for part-time jobs. More than 100,000 part-time workers would like to work more.
The employment rate – as the proportion of employed persons in all persons aged 15 to 64 – was 76.6 percent for men and 69.8 percent for women, for a total of 73.2 percent. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, the employment rate fell by 0.8 percentage point. The employment rate fell, especially among men – by 1.2 percentage points. This is mainly due to the seasonal development in construction. That of women fell by only 0.3 percentage point.
Many unintentionally part-time
In the first quarter of 2023, more than every second working woman (50.7 percent) and more than every eighth man (13 percent) reported working part-time. According to the new Eurostat definition, in the first quarter of 2023 a total of 113,400 or 8.3 percent of part-time workers indicated that they wanted to work more hours and could start working within two weeks. In total, 80,900 women and 32,500 men were involuntarily underemployed.
More unemployed
“Unemployment has risen again for the first time after falling every quarter since the third quarter of 2021,” said Tobias Thomas, head of the authorities. “At the same time, the economy cannot fill many jobs: the number of vacancies is still at a very high level.”
The number of unemployed according to the international definition has also risen slightly. Previously, since the third quarter of 2021, their numbers had steadily decreased compared to the same period last year. This trend did not continue in the first months of this year: despite the high number of almost 230,000 vacancies, a total of 257,600 unemployed people were looking for work. That was 16,200 more than last year (Q1 2022: 241,400).
Part-time jobs more popular with women
The non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate totaled 5.5 percent (men: 6.1 percent; women: 4.9 percent), 0.3 percentage points slightly higher than last year’s figure. In general, the majority of the unemployed (61.6 percent) would like to have a full-time job. However, the gender-specific differences in the amount of working time sought are large: three-quarters of unemployed men (77 percent) were only looking for full-time work. Part-time work, on the other hand, is especially popular with women: 41.5 percent were exclusively looking for a part-time job in the first quarter of 2023.
Source: Krone
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