Finance

family

The budget for the advancement of women in the labor market was increased. Ministers Kocher & Raab presented the new labor market package for women.

After the family hardship fund was increased by 50 million euros only last week and extended until the end of June 2021, the budget for promoting women in the labor market has now also been increased. At a press conference on Wednesday, Women's Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP) and Labor Minister Martin Kocher (ÖVP) presented the new labor market package for women.

“The corona pandemic has exacerbated the situation of women in the labor market. It is important to me that the focus in all departments is on how to best help women in all their different situations,” explained Minister for Women, Susanne Raab. In cooperation with Labor Minister Kocher, a “record budget for the advancement of women” can now provide important impetus to bring more women back into the labor market.

More than 60 million euros for the AMS women's program

In addition to the recently launched Corona job offensive, a total of 60.5 million euros are available for the nationwide AMS women's program this year. Compared to the previous year, when the women's budget was 55 million euros, this year it has been increased by more than 5 million euros. The development over the past five years is also encouraging: In 2016, comparatively “only” 38 million euros were available for the women's budget.

As the two ministers announced, the funding target for women in 2021 will also be around 50 percent.

Funding target for women for 2021 at 50 percent

The amount available should flow into various programs. These include, for example, “FiT” – women in handicrafts and technology -, women's and girls' vocational centers, and the “Re-entry with a future” program.

It is important here that access to all these programs is “designed to be as open and inclusive as possible”. All unemployed women can benefit from this. Last year around 50,000 women took part in the special programs. It is important to achieve a positive development here as well.

AMS childcare assistance is being expanded:

Another point in the women's package includes an expansion of the AMS childcare allowance. It is important to the Minister for Women and Employment, in addition to promoting professional qualifications for women, to contribute to a better work-life balance. For this reason, the childcare assistance provided by the Public Employment Service (AMS) is to be expanded or made more attractive. This is done as follows:

– Reimbursement of childcare costs: Currently, mothers who return to work, are completing a training course or are in a difficult professional situation are reimbursed up to a maximum of EUR 2,300 for childcare costs up to a maximum income limit of EUR 2,300.

– Increase in the maximum income limit : so that even more women can benefit from this regulation, this maximum income limit will soon be increased to 2,650 euros. For example, female nurses (starting salary at around € 2,350) or chemists (starting salary between € 2,300 and € 2,700) benefit from this.

In particular, women who are employed in nursing and currently have to do special things, make it easier to reconcile family and work.

“In this year's AMS budget, we are placing a clear focus on promoting and including women in the labor market. With over 60 million euros, more funds are available for this in 2021 than ever before have not benefited from it so far and are also strengthening the compatibility of family and work, “said Labor Minister Martin Kocher.

The desired domination agreement for the subsidiary Osram has come into force.

The control and profit transfer agreement between the Styrian sensor specialist ams and its daughter, the German lighting company Osram, came into force on Wednesday, ams announced in the evening. Initially, the entry in the commercial register was prevented by lawsuits filed by several Osram shareholders. In November, the Osram Annual General Meeting approved the domination agreement, which is also intended to give ams access to Osram's financial resources to reduce debt.

With the contract, ams wanted to gain access to Osram's financial resources, also to repay the debts for the more than four billion euro takeover.

Integration advanced

The planning process for the integration is now well advanced, said the outgoing Osram boss Olaf Berlien at the general meeting on Tuesday. This is how the management levels are named and the control model is approved. Almost the entire management level at Osram has found a comparable position in the joint company. However, Berlien leaves the company at the end of the month. He will be succeeded by ams CFO Ingo Bank, who will take on the top Osram job in addition to his duties at ams.

In response to the corona crisis, Osram had massively put the brakes on costs. The investments were not spared, said finance director Kathrin Dahnke: In the past financial year, they were well below the level of the previous year at almost 100 million euros. “This low level of investment will remain an exception,” she said. The decline was mainly due to the exceptional year 2020.

Rapid recovery

Osram is now recovering from the pandemic faster than expected. Berlien confirmed the forecast that sales should increase by 10 to 14 percent and an adjusted operating return on sales of 12 to 15 percent is expected. In the first quarter (October to December), sales of around 840 million euros were on a par with the previous year, while the adjusted Ebitda of 162 million euros was 42 percent higher than a year earlier. The financial year at Osram runs until the end of September. In connection with the takeover by ams, the fiscal year is to be changed so that it coincides with the calendar year from next year.

Teachers, kindergarten teachers and civil servants will have to be tested for the corona virus in the future.

Image: AFP

The previous option for test refusers in professional groups with a lot of customer contact, alternatively to work with an FFP2 mask, is no longer available. This provides for an amendment to the law that was sent for assessment by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday evening. This also makes it easier to prescribe exit restrictions. The review runs until March 9th .

Anyone who organizes events on a commercial basis and disregards a prohibition in accordance with the Epidemic Act will in future be punished with a fine of up to 30,000 euros or six weeks' imprisonment according to the submission. Participants in prohibited events have to deliver up to 1,450 euros. Organizers who do not obtain a permit or who do not comply with requirements can expect 3,600 euros or four weeks in prison.

The options for intervening at meetings are also newly regulated. If up to now the focus has been on the “confluence of larger crowds”, in future there will be at least four people who are considered to be an event. This applies to both the public and the private sector , with the latter once again making it clear that there are no controls at home.

Exit restrictions are to be made easier. So far, these could only be imposed if the health system threatened to collapse or in “similar emergency situations”. Shorter restrictions such as night curfews should now be possible if contact tracking can no longer be maintained due to the uncontrolled spread of the virus.

Google removes tracking cookies from advertising companies. A new system should better protect privacy.

Advertising companies use cookies to precisely analyze the surfing behavior of users. This happens not only across websites, but also in social networks and, increasingly, in email programs. The aim is to display advertisements that are as targeted as possible to users.

At the beginning of 2020, Google promised to ban the tracking cookies from such companies within 2 years. Now Google speaks up again.

Take a new course

The plan to throw company cookies from the Chrome browser and other Google products is still going. In addition, Google promises that the tracking cookies will not be replaced by new types of precisely spying on the surfing behavior of users.

Instead, Google products are to be powered by “privacy-preserving APIs that prevent the tracking of individuals, but still deliver results for advertisers and publishers.”

Like in a concert

To achieve this, the “privacy sandbox” should be used. The surfing behavior is also analyzed, but then you are only put in a group with thousands of other users who have similar interests. Google compares that to going to a concert: You get lost in the crowd, but everyone is there because they like that kind of music. This feature should be available in Chrome for the first time in April.

According to Google, this method could help preserve the web as we know it. Because many companies and publishers are dependent on advertising income. If users increasingly use ad blockers because they don't trust the extensive tracking of advertising companies, there is less advertising revenue for publishers. The response to this is either less content (downsizing) or less free content (paywall) to make up for the lack of revenue.

E-car refueling

Done with diesel and gasoline: Volvo wants to have only electric cars in its range within five years. Volvo also wants to break new ground in sales.

With the automaker Volvo, the next automaker is announcing the complete departure from the internal combustion engine. From 2030, the Swedes, which are part of the Chinese Geely Group, only want to build and sell pure electric cars, as the company announced in Gothenburg on Tuesday.

“There is no longer a long-term future for cars with internal combustion engines,” said Volvo's Chief Technology Officer Henrik Green.

Volvo had already announced a long time ago that by the middle of the decade it wanted to increase the proportion of purely electric models to around half – the rest should then be hybrid drives. According to the plans, however, these will no longer be part of the offer in 2030.

With the project, Volvo joins the growing number of car manufacturers who want to say goodbye to combustion engines completely. US auto giant General Motors recently announced that it would only sell zero-emission cars from 2035 onwards. The British car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover recently announced this for its luxury brand Jaguar from the year 2025. However, German carmakers have so far held back at specific times for a possible phasing out of gasoline, diesel and mixed drives.

Volvo Cars boss Hakan Samuelsson also wants to take a radical cut in sales. In the future, the carmaker's all-electric cars will only be sold directly via the Internet. The new all-electric XC40 Recharge Pure Electric for model year 2022 will only be available online. The current trading model is facing a fundamental change, according to the company. Nevertheless, the contractual partners in the Volvo dealerships continue to play an important role; they remain the contact point for customers.

The car manufacturer Volvo Cars, based in Gothenburg, has been separated from the Swedish commercial vehicle manufacturer Volvo AB for many years. Volvo Cars is owned by the Chinese auto company Geely, which also has a stake in Volvo AB.

Ford also recently announced it would invest $ 1 billion in a new electric vehicle plant in Cologne. The news is part of Ford's plan to convert 100% of its European passenger car offerings to electric vehicles by 2030.

Pop star, environmental activist and rarely without a felt hat: Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) is undoubtedly one of the most influential and highly endowed actors on the art scene in the second half of the 20th century. The Belvedere 21 is dedicating a retrospective to the exceptional German artist, who would have turned 100 in May, from Thursday. In addition to large-scale installations such as the “Honey Machine”, the main focus is on those traces that Beuys left behind in Vienna.

Image: APA

The Beuys birthday show brings together 64 works – including sketches, drawings and a suit made entirely of felt – as well as 123 exhibits such as photographs, posters and other documentation material. “It was a bold decision to have an exhibition on Beuys in the year of the 100th birthday,” said Belvedere director Stella Rollig on Wednesday during a press conference. After all, according to the current status, 32 “museum projects” about this powerful artist are taking place all over the world – “from Osaka in Japan to Izmir in Turkey”. “You notice the radiance of Beuys and his work to this day,” said Rollig, who proudly emphasized that Belvedere 21 with “Joseph Beuys. Think. Act. Communicate.” was there very early and could, so to speak, give the starting shot for this year's anniversary year.

So how do you approach this giant of recent art history, who made a name for himself with the excessive use of fat and felt and his idea of social sculpture – art as a collective act of political and social design – without getting lost in the international festivities? By telling a thread in Beuys' work with the various references to Vienna, which, according to curator Harald Krejci, has so far hardly received any closer attention.

In 1966 – before his big breakthrough at the time – Beuys came to the federal capital for the first time to exhibit at the invitation of Monsignor Otto Maurer in the gallery together with St. Stephan. Vienna was interested in the artist because of its geopolitical location, but also because of the local art scene – especially the Viennese actionists – explained Rollig. A year later, Beuys carried out his “EURASIENSTAB 82 min fluxorum organum” campaign in the same gallery: Beuys drove a 50 kilo copper stick along four felt corners, brought him to a “fat corner” made from margarine blocks and wanted to do so in times of Cold War symbolize a merging of East and West. Photographs and a film recording near the exhibition entrance are reminiscent of the performance.

“Base room wet laundry” was also specially designed for Vienna – a critical commentary on the plan at the time to accommodate the museum of modern art in the magnificent baroque Palais Liechtenstein. Three gutters, sparse furniture, a bucket of grease and a lightbulb are part of this space-consuming installation from 1979. In the same year, Beuys also had a professorship at the Vienna University of Applied Arts within reach, which he turned down.

The second space-consuming arrangement is dedicated to the “honey pump in the workplace” (1977). Beuys had it erected at the documenta in Kassel. Using a motor-driven pump, honey flowed across several floors through a circuit of hoses, while the artist himself held discussions on various topics for 100 days in a seminar room next door.

As is so often the case with actionist art, Belvedere 21 is also faced with the question of how past performances can be museumized with the help of relics. In the case of the “honey pump”, the decision was made to place the individual original components of the project next to one another, similar to a warehouse setting. A film shows the machine in action.

In 1983, three years before his death, Beuys, who had meanwhile advanced to become an artist star but was also rejected as a blender and charlatan, came to Vienna for the last time to exchange ideas with the then Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky. He also planted a tree in front of the Angewandte – who has been involved with the Greens since the mid-1970s – and thought aloud about foresting the current Museum Quarter area.

A year earlier, Beuys had started his “7000 oaks” campaign. Unloaded basalt steles in front of the Fridericianum museum building in Kassel were set up again for a fee, together with an oak tree. The project under the motto “city deforestation instead of city administration” could only be completed a year after the death of its initiator. As a homage to this ecological intervention, a pedunculate oak was planted in the sculpture garden of Belvedere 21 today.

(SERVICE – “Joseph Beuys. Think. Act. Mediate.” In Belvedere 21, 3rd, Arsenalstrasse 1; from Thursday to June 13; Tuesday to Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., 9 euros, reduced 7 euros; accompanying program depending on current events Corona regulations planned from around mid-April; a 200-page catalog has been published for the exhibition;)

After the searches at the protective mask manufacturer Hygiene Austria on suspicion that masks produced in China were incorrectly labeled and sold as Austrian products, the buyers of the masks are now investigating whether they too could be affected and a recall is necessary. The cause has a political dimension due to the fact that the company's managing director is a relative of the office manager of Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP).

A spokesman for Hygiene Austria – the company is a joint venture between the Upper Austrian fiber manufacturer Lenzing and the Palmers textile group – confirmed the raids at two locations on Tuesday. According to the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office (WKStA), it is a matter of suspicion of organized undeclared work and serious commercial fraud.

Hygiene Austria strongly rejects the allegations raised as “baseless” and, according to its own statements, cooperates closely with the authorities to help clarify the situation. It is regrettable here “to be drawn into current political disputes”, so the management. The APA request for the main buyers of the corona protective masks has not yet been answered by Hygiene Austria.

Representatives of the SPÖ and FPÖ have pointed out that the products produced abroad and allegedly relabeled are also made available by parliament.

For whom and in what number the Federal Procurement Agency BBG also bought masks from Hygiene Austria cannot be fully clarified at first – the BBG said it learned about the house searches from the media on Tuesday, as it was called on Wednesday at the APA's request .

Spar: masks made in Austria

“We started immediately with the emergence of media reports and are currently collecting the necessary information in order to be able to check whether and to what extent public procurement measures are being taken on the basis of the BVergG (Federal Procurement Act, note) 2018 or the framework agreements that have been concluded are “, it said in a written statement from the BBG.” The BBG asked Hygiene Austria LP GmbH to comment on Tuesday evening. ” How many masks the BBG commissioned from Hygiene Austria and for which authorities or state-affiliated companies they were intended, the BBG did not want to reveal on request. According to the EU-wide tender (https://opentender.eu/at/search/tender) there were 50 bidders for the 420 million euro contract.

The Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) have obtained 576,000 FFP2 masks with CE certificate from Hygiene Austria via the Federal Procurement Agency from a framework contract, as an ÖBB spokesman said on Wednesday for the APA. Now one wants to wait for the investigations of the WKStA.

Protective masks were put into circulation by retailers in particularly large numbers. “We took note of the reports with concern because we deliberately bought many of these masks,” said Spar spokeswoman Nicole Berkmann when asked by the APA. Talks have already been held on this “at a high level”. The spokeswoman emphasized that the masks given by Spar to its customers are safe. “We have 100 percent traceability that the masks we buy are definitely made in Austria at the Wiener Neudorf site.” The raw material also comes from Austria, “and we have test reports for our masks that are really FFP2 mask quality”. Therefore, the masks will be given to employees and customers as before.

The Rewe group (Billa, Merkur, Bipa, Penny) has also purchased several million masks from Hygiene Austria. “We are currently checking this internally and are in contact with Hygiene Austria,” said Rewe spokesman Paul Pöttschacher. At the moment the masks are still on sale, but the quality is checked internally via quality management. Rewe also obtained masks from the Styrian producer Aventrium, but also from China.

The discounter Lidl Austria claims that it has not obtained any masks from Hygiene Austria.

Parliament also got masks

The raid on the domestic protective mask manufacturer Hygiene Austria also occupied the Ibiza committee of inquiry on the sidelines on Wednesday. The SPÖ and FPÖ pointed out that the products produced abroad and allegedly relabeled are also made available by parliament. Because the company's managing director is a relative of the office manager of Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP), the SPÖ sent a parliamentary question to the Chancellor.

As the Parliamentary Directorate confirmed in response to an APA request, MNS masks from the domestic manufacturer Hygiene Austria are in Parliament's inventory. However, these were not obtained directly. Rather, it was a “request from the Federal Procurement Company (BBG)”. There the company appears as one of several dozen providers for the procurement of protective masks (current status of the company: “in examination”).

SPÖ Vice Club boss Jörg Leichtfried recalled on Wednesday the relationship between the Chancellor's office manager and the Hygiene Austria managing director (she is married to Palmers board member Luca Wieser and is related by marriage to Hygiene managing director Tino Wieser). By means of a parliamentary inquiry, Leichtfried therefore wants to know whether the Chancellery has also bought masks from the company and whether the company has intervened in this regard. “While hundreds of thousands of people are unemployed in Austria and thousands of entrepreneurs have to fear for their existence, a few were doing the business of their lives in the middle of the Corona crisis”, Leichtfried criticized in a broadcast.

FPÖ club chairman Herbert Kickl also pointed out at a press conference: “A very fine company in which the Federal Chancellor moves.” Until a few hours ago, this was the company's “parade testimonial” – but now his helpers have apparently tried to cover up these traces. In addition to the “close association” of his office manager, the ORF board member Gregor Schütze sent by the ÖVP is also responsible for the company's press work.

In the committee, all groups hoped for a quick legal processing of the cause. The company had spoken of “baseless accusations” by the Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office (WKStA) and accused it of being drawn into daily political disputes. The judiciary must work quickly and – depending on the case – quickly indict or suspend the proceedings, demanded ÖVP parliamentary group leader Wolfgang Gerstl.

ADP: 117,000 private sector jobs created

US companies created far fewer jobs than expected in February. The bottom line was that only 117,000 jobs were created in the private sector, as shown in the survey published on Wednesday by the personnel service provider ADP. By contrast, experts polled by Reuters had expected an increase of 177,000. According to the revised data, the number of jobs increased in January by 195,000.

“The increase in employment is continuing, albeit at a slower pace than in January,” commented economist Patrick Boldt from Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba). The economic outlook is thus friendly. “It should be noted, however, that compared to before the crisis there are still millions of jobs missing. It will therefore be a long time before normality can be spoken of,” added the Helaba expert. Experts expect the number of jobs outside of agriculture to rise by 180,000 in the government’s February labor market report due on Friday.

The German car company is currently running a trial run of the radio update with company cars.

After initial teething problems, Volkswagen wants to keep the software of its e-cars regularly up to date via the Internet. “All ID.3 and ID.4 that roll off the production line from now on will already be capable of over-the-air updates,” said VW boss Ralf Brandstätter on LinkedIn on Wednesday. The system is currently being tested on the company cars of Group employees.

The latest software version should then be installed on the customer vehicles in the summer. In the future, car owners can use such updates to extend the range of their batteries or to book certain services for an additional charge.

The updates are intended to ensure that the software is kept up to date with the status of a new car. “That also means that our ID.Models keep getting better over their lifecycle,” said Brandstätter.

Volkswagen had to postpone the start of its first completely newly developed ID.3 electric model last year due to software problems. The first vehicles did not have all functions on board either. The heads-up display, for example, via which certain displays are projected into the windshield, only got later versions.

Software updates via the Internet (over the air) are a decisive competitive factor because they eliminate the need for workshop visits. The US electric car manufacturer Tesla has been offering this for a long time. The Swedish car manufacturer Volvo, which belongs to the Chinese Geely Group, also wants to offer such software updates.

The change was made even before the new logo was launched worldwide – the reactions of the testers were decisive.

Amazon has adapted the new symbol of its smartphone app after some users on the Internet felt reminded of a Hitler mustache. The world's largest online retailer recently replaced the app icon that had a shopping cart on it for a long time. The new app logo is based on the design of the Amazon packages with the arrow curved into a smile.

In addition, a strip of adhesive tape can be seen at the upper end – and this is exactly what reminded some Internet users in a first version of the characteristic mustache of Adolf Hitler. In the modified version of the new app icon, one corner of the adhesive tape strip was bent and the previously jagged lower tear-off edge made straight.

lmao I completely missed that amazon quietly tweaked its new icon to make it look… less like hitler pic.twitter.com/Jh8UC8Yg3u

– alex hern (@alexhern) March 1, 2021

Amazon made the changes before the global introduction of the new logo based on customer reactions in the first test markets. “We designed the new app icon to arouse anticipation, enthusiasm and fun when customers start their shopping tour on their mobile phone – just like when they see our packages on their doorstep,” the company described Idea behind the new design on Wednesday.