Unemployed for the first time below pre-crisis level – oesterreich.ORF.at

With 268,028 unemployed people registered with the AMS, there are 1,129 fewer unemployed than in 2019, the Ministry of Labor announced. If you take all unemployed people including training participants, the total number of 335,058 (2021) is still higher than in 2019 with 329,083. There are currently 67,030 training participants, compared to 59,926 in the comparison week of 2019.

Unemployment has been reduced by around 4,600 people in the last week. Compared to the previous year 2020, which was even more marked by the CoV crisis, around 78,200 fewer people are currently registered as unemployed with the AMS.

Record number of vacancies

At the same time, there is a record of vacancies with around 120,000 vacancies, albeit with regional differences: while there is a lack of jobs in Vienna, companies in many other federal states are increasingly looking for qualified workers. The registrations for short-time work are currently 62,387, although the monthly bills are decisive.

Labor Minister Martin Kocher and Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (at the ÖVP) are delighted with the falling unemployment figures in a broadcast. The measures of the federal government could have had an effect, Austria would recover faster than expected from the consequences of the world economic crisis.

“Upswing should reach everyone”

“The economy continues to grow and we have to ensure that those who can work now also go to work, that the vacancies are filled and that the upswing is popular with everyone,” said Kurz. For Kocher, the generation of the pre-crisis level came “much faster than originally”.

Now the focus is still on training measures and reducing long-term unemployment. In addition, many job exchanges are organized in cooperation with the AMS. “The overcoming of the crisis on the labor market also shows once again that now is the right time to restart a reform dialogue on unemployment insurance,” said Kocher.