December 2020

“Today” & the Austrian Chamber of Commerce are giving away weekend trips for two as soon as we can enjoy our beautiful capitals again!

The ongoing corona crisis has kept the whole country in suspense for months. The effects of the corona pandemic are having a severe impact on local city hotels and travel agencies. In order to support you and your employees now, the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, together with “Heute” , makes you want to go on a short trip to an Austrian capital as soon as it is possible again without hindrance. With this campaign, the Austrian Chamber of Commerce supports domestic city tourism and all industries associated with it – such as travel agencies or trade.

More than ever, people are now looking for a pleasant change, for something that at least for a weekend brings them to different thoughts. Following the famous phrase “Rain follows sunshine” , “Today” and the Austrian Chamber of Commerce want to put a smile on your face and give you confidence. Because this crisis will also come to an end and nothing stands in the way of a new beginning: Take part in the raffle now & win an exclusive weekend trip to your capital!

“Today” and the Austrian Chamber of Commerce are making a truly fantastic prize available, which not only makes the winners happy, but also helps businesses. We are giving away:

1 . 3 x weekend vacation for two for all nine Austrian federal states: This means that three winners will be drawn for each federal state, each with an accompanying person of their choice.

2. The competition price includes: *

~ a nice weekend trip for two to the respective state capital

~ Visit to the hairdresser in the afternoon

~ Cosmetics / massage

~ Shopping budget

~ 2x dinner in a gourmet restaurant

~ two nights in a 5 star hotel from Friday to Sunday

3. The winners spend the weekend in the capital of the federal state in which they live. Example: A winner lives in Hallein. He and his company are spending the weekend in Salzburg. **

4. The date for the holiday weekend will be agreed directly with the respective winner. However, the prize must be redeemed in the foreseeable future after the winner has been notified. ***

1. First answer the competition question: Tell us why you should win this prize; what was it, what you had to accomplish and master in the crisis and what now need a break from.

2 . Choose your capital

3. Fill in all other fields in the form

4. Then click on “Submit”

The competition is active until December 22, 2020, 11:59 p.m. The winners will be notified by phone or email. Cash payment and legal recourse are excluded.

“Today” and the Austrian Chamber of Commerce wish all competition participants the best of luck!

* This is a finished package for the winners. The individual segments – hotel, restaurant, hairdresser, cosmetics / massage – are already included in the package and cannot be selected or changed by the winner.

The leadership crisis at Volkswagen has been averted and the transformation to a technology provider is to be accelerated.

The leadership crisis at Volkswagen has been averted for the time being. The supervisory board decided on Monday evening to cut and fill key positions on the executive board with which CEO Herbert Diess wants to accelerate the transformation into a technology provider based on the model of the US electric car manufacturer Tesla.

Power struggle

His demand for an early contract extension, however, came to nothing. It wasn't on the agenda.

In the opinion of group observers, works council chief Bernd Osterloh prevailed, with whom Diess had been fighting for months in an exhausting power struggle over the speed of group restructuring.

“Unrestricted support”

The supervisory board then announced that Diess had “unlimited support” in aligning the group with electromobility and digitization. The owner families Porsche declared: “It is of crucial importance for us that Herbert Diess and his new board of management team will continue to shape this important phase of the Volkswagen Group.”

With the implementation of the “Strategy 2025+” he has full support, “as well as with the implementation of measures that increase profitability”.

Vienna. The crisis increases the pressure on workers in Austria. This is suggested by several current evaluations. A study by Sora on behalf of the Momentum Institute showed that during the first lockdown in the spring, 46 percent of families felt they were severely stressed. It is now 58 percent. The second lockdown thus became a greater burden for many parents than the first. For the study, 685 parents of children under the age of 15 were interviewed in November; the first part took place in April.

After the first lockdown, the parents returned to their workplaces and worked less in the home office. Both mothers and fathers reduced their working hours less in the second lockdown than in the first. And although schools and kindergartens were open, more than 70 percent of the children were cared for at home. Women in particular were increasingly relocating their work to off-peak times: “Every third woman surveyed worked early in the morning or in the evening, and every tenth even in the night, in spite of it Finding childcare time for gainful employment, ”says Barbara Blaha, director of the Momentum Institute.

A lot of stress even before the pandemic

But the increasing pressure in the world of work does not only affect families – and it is not only related to the corona crisis. Even before the pandemic, without any additional burdens such as homeschooling, working life was characterized by ever increasing time pressure. This is shown by an evaluation of the Statistics Austria survey on work organization and working time arrangements for 2019.

According to this, 41.5 percent of those in work regularly worked overtime in the previous year, 40.5 percent were often under time pressure – around a tenth (12.6 percent) even “always”. Only 18.1 percent never experienced stress. The industry with the highest proportion of employees who “always” worked under time pressure was accommodation and catering (18.2 percent). Employees in the areas of transport (17.9 percent), health and social services (17.4 percent), construction (13.6 percent) and trade (13.4 percent) were often under constant time pressure.

Even more hours were often on the agenda. 27.1 percent of those in employment were asked to start or end work “at least once a week”, and 14.4 percent were asked to do so “at least once a month”.

In the other direction, the flexibility is much less – to get one to two hours off at short notice was only very easy for a good third of the employed (36.7 percent) last year, while staying away spontaneously for a day or two for just under a quarter (24, 5 percent). Viewed in terms of activities, workers in auxiliary and semi-skilled activities found it particularly difficult to decouple themselves at short notice. In terms of sectors, this primarily affected education and training, transport, accommodation and gastronomy, as well as health and social services.

The latter area – specifically care professions – was the subject of another Sora survey, the results of which Health Minister Rudolf Anschober and Labor Minister Christine Aschbacher presented to journalists on Monday 68 percent even with their salary. In order to make the job more attractive, however, better training and qualification opportunities are needed, more occupational health promotion and more time for the people to be cared for.

Reform package for nursing professions

The latter coincides with the evaluation by Statistics Austria, which shows that the health and social services are under particularly high time pressure.

In order to make nursing professions more attractive and to support the current AMS “job offensive” in this area, a comprehensive reform package is to be put together by the end of January, announced Anschober and Aschbacher.

The need for this is acute: around 100,000 new nurses will be needed by 2030, Aschbacher calculated. And this is not only due to the increasing demand due to demographic development: of the currently around 127,000 employees in this area, more than 30 percent are over 50 years old, said Aschbacher. Many currently active nurses will therefore retire within the next ten years. (here / cka / APA)

The wholesale giant only expects a slight drop in sales for the new financial year.

The outgoing Metro boss Olaf Koch is putting a dividend under the Christmas tree for investors in the corona crisis. The wholesale giant wants to pay its shareholders an unchanged dividend of 70 cents per share for the 2019/20 financial year, as it announced on Monday.

Income from sales

This is also made possible by the income from the sale of the China business, because the group posted declines in its business due to the burdens resulting from the pandemic for important customer groups such as hotels and restaurants.

In the new 2020/21 financial year, the group is now anticipating a slight decrease in sales, while the adjusted operating income (EBITDA) is expected to decline in the mid double-digit million euro range.

Double top

In the past fiscal year, Metro posted a decline in sales of 5.4 percent to 25.6 billion euros, as the group announced. Adjusted EBITDA shrank by 16.8 percent to around 1.16 billion euros. The bottom line was that the group earned 460 million euros from the sale of the majority stake in its China business to minorities.

From the turn of the year onwards, Metro will be led by a dual leadership until a successor for Koch is found. The board members Christian Baier and Rafael Gasset will jointly take over the position of chairman of the board for the interim period from January. Chairman of the Supervisory Board Jürgen Steinemann is looking for a successor for Koch.

Takeover offer

Koch had announced in August that he wanted to leave Metro at the end of the year. After that, major shareholder Daniel Kretinsky had collected more than 40 percent of Metro shares with a takeover offer. He can use it to buy more shares and tighten his grip on Metro.

In 2012, Koch had moved to the head of what was then Metro and had converted the widely ramified and highly indebted group into a pure wholesaler. Among other things, he had sold the department store giant Kaufhof, spun off the electronics retail chains Media Markt and Saturn under the Ceconomy holding company. Most recently, Metro finally parted with the Real supermarket chain last April.

After years of tug-of-war, an agreement was reached with the founding family to take over the remaining 21.6 percent.

The German electronics retail chain MediaSaturn will in future be wholly owned by the parent company Ceconomy. After years of tug-of-war with the Media Markt founding family, the Kellerhals, the Düsseldorf-based group agreed to take over the remaining 21.6 percent of the shares in MediaSaturn, as Ceconomy announced on Monday evening.

Participation

In return, the Kellerhals family holding Convergenta will receive a 25.9 percent stake in Ceconomy, convertible bonds worth 160 million euros and 130 million euros in cash. Ceconomy put the value of the transaction on the basis of the current Ceconomy share price at a total of 815 million euros.

Convergenta wants to increase the stake to 29.9 percent. The family holding company was initially not available for comment.

Veto rights

MediaMarkt founder Erich Kellerhals had sold the majority of the chain 30 years ago, but had been granted extensive minority rights. That always caused arguments. The extensive veto rights of the Kellerhals family at Media Markt and Saturn were a thorn in the side of the management of what was then Metro.

Metro said goodbye to electronics retailing in 2017 and spun off the business to Ceconomy AG, a little later – in December 2017 – Erich Kellerhals died. The thread of conversation was resumed with his heirs. With the complete takeover, tax loss carryforwards totaling 2.4 billion euros in corporate and trade tax could be used, explained Ceconomy.