The careful opening steps bring some relief to the labor market. Tourism continues to suffer severely.
Economics minister Margarete Schramböck, finance minister Gernot Blümel (both ÖVP), climate protection minister Leonore Gewessler and labor minister Martin Kocher provided information on Tuesday about the economic challenges and the situation on the labor market.
The economy in Austria has deteriorated further. According to Wifo, the downward trend accelerated in January. While the economic slump at the beginning of January was 11 percent compared to the previous year, it has recently been almost 14 percent again.
Tourism suffers particularly badly due to the travel restrictions and the ban on gastronomy, as Finance Minister Blümel explained. 5.2 percent of GDP depends on foreign tourists. Therefore, the lockdown has a greater impact on Austria's economic performance than in other countries. The budget gap in 2020 was 22.5 billion euros.
The easy opening steps in one week bring some relief to the labor market, assures Labor Minister Kocher. But the crisis is far from over. The high level of unemployment has decreased slightly compared to last week. A total of 462,000 people are currently registered as unemployed (value without training), which is around 5,000 fewer unemployed than last week.
Registrations for short-time work have also decreased slightly. The AMS reimburses 60 percent of the costs if entrepreneurs further qualify their employees as part of short-time work. There is also other support for training.
