The proportion of families who subjectively felt at risk of poverty has risen sharply.
Labor Minister Martin Kocher
The short-time work to cushion the corona-related company closings hit young people particularly hard. But it was not a stopover for unemployment, because practically all people on short-time work had a job again in September, or were still on short-time work, shows a comprehensive study based on register data and large surveys. Short-time work decreased with age, with women reducing their working hours more than men.
However, the support for households only partially cushioned the impact, shows the study presented on Wednesday by Nadia Steiber (University of Vienna / IHS), Christina Siegert (University of Vienna) and Stefan Vogtenhuber (IHS / University of Vienna). The proportion of families who subjectively felt at risk of poverty has risen sharply.
Of 3.6 million regular employees, 28 percent went on short-time work in spring 2020, but only five percent became unemployed. That shows that the instrument has served its purpose, said Vogtenhuber. It was also positive that most of them worked some working hours on short-time and therefore remained connected to the job, according to Steiber. Only a fifth worked “practically not at all”, i.e. around 10 percent of the hours before the crisis. A fifth were registered, but continued to work normally and therefore did not take advantage of the short-time work.
“Less good” is that there was hardly any professional training during the short-time working phase, notes Steiber. Only 15 to 20 percent used the reduction in working hours, while many even experienced an “erosion of professional skills” caused by the crisis due to absence from work, the lack of informal learning or the return to less qualified activities after short-time work.
Even if short-time work prevented unemployment, the loss of income for many, especially in households with children, was a threat to their existence, Siebert put the success story into perspective. While nine percent of households with children found it difficult to get along with their income before the crisis, it was already 23 percent in June 2020 and this share hardly decreased until January 2021 despite replacement benefits, one-off payments and hardship funds.
Among the single parents, the proportion of households who found it difficult to get by with the money was 16 percent, twice as high as among households as a whole, at 16 percent even before the crisis. During the crisis, the proportion soared to over a third (35 percent). Subjectively, however, it hit the families particularly hard in which both parents were employed and at least one of them lost his job or was on short-time work. More than half of them (55 percent) got along well with their money before the crisis, only 4 percent had financial difficulties. Now one third feels that they have too little money, only one third is getting on well financially.
Steiber does not assume that there was too little money. But too much was paid out in a lump sum regardless of individual needs. Also, money from the hardship fund was only paid out once for three months – those who were affected for a longer period were left empty-handed. And Siegert also sees a structural problem that already exists, which has become even more visible in the crisis. For many families it was also difficult to get access to the help.
