Vienna . The crisis triggered by the corona pandemic is the biggest labor market crisis since the Second World War. “After the crisis there will be an upswing,” said the board member of the Public Employment Service (AMS), Johannes Kopf, in an interview with the APA. For this, the unemployed would have to be retrained and trained now. Before that, however, unemployment in Austria will rise to over 500,000 people and will probably peak at the end of January.
It is difficult to make a precise forecast of when the upturn in the labor market will come. From today's perspective, it is assumed that unemployment will fall from the third quarter of 2021. Kopf sees vaccination and its spread as a turning point in development. Here there will be “pull-forward effects”: “If this vaccination is available to large parts of the population and is promised to others, then one can assume that the propensity to invest and consume will rise again because one notices that something is going on.” He has already made the decision for himself: “As soon as there is a vaccination, I'll get vaccinated.”
Not full of winter tourism
There will have been more than 500,000 unemployed by the end of December. Unemployment will certainly be even higher in January. The peak of the absolute unemployment figures is expected for the end of January. In addition, one must assume that there will probably no longer be any real winter tourism this year. The depressed tourism does not have such a massive impact on unemployment, since half of the employees are foreigners who are now often in their home country.
The development of unemployment in construction, which depends on the weather and snow conditions, is also important. If there is snow in deep areas in winter, construction work cannot continue and orders cannot be carried out. Overall, however, the construction industry remained surprisingly stable during the corona crisis.
At the end of March, unemployment will in any case fall compared to the previous year's figures because it exploded in March 2020 – with the start of the first lockdown. At that time there had been an increase of 200,000 unemployed in 14 days. By mid-April, the unemployment rate had risen even further.
The AMS is well prepared for the economic upturn expected this year. With the Corona job offensive, the largest training program was started with the help of the 700 million euros from the government. Furthermore, short-time work will be continued and the revenue replacement, coupled with a ban on dismissal, will be attractive for companies. “It costs an incredible amount of money, but it works,” Kopf is convinced of the corona aid.
Short-time work is not a permanent solution
In some industries, an end to short-time work should be discussed, says the AMS board. He is against keeping thousands of employees in aviation for a long time. One must also take note that business trips will be reduced in the future and that some tourism will probably not return. For this reason, employees who work in these sectors or who offer services for them should also be given the opportunity to reorient themselves. (APA)
