Image: Erwin Wodicka
The current figures from Statistics Austria for the domestic labor market show a mixed picture: in the first quarter of 2023, 4.42 million people were employed, 1.1 percent more than in the previous year, but the number of unemployed also rose slightly. The employment rate – the proportion of employed persons among all persons between the ages of 15 and 64 – was 76.6 percent for men and 69.8 percent for women. Compared to the fourth quarter of last year, it fell by a total of 0.8 percentage points.
Unemployment had been falling year-on-year since the third quarter of 2021, but has now started to rise again. At the same time there are many vacancies: In the first quarter there were more than 228,000 jobs this year, said Statistics Austria boss Tobias Thomas. On the other hand, there are more than 257,000 people looking for work.
Willingness for full-time job
Every second woman and every eighth man worked part-time at the beginning of the year. A good 8.3 percent of them, more than 113,000 people, would be willing to increase their hours within two weeks. This group – including 80,000 women – is therefore considered to be “involuntarily underemployed”.
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