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600 medium-sized companies with 30 to 2,000 employees from all over Austria were surveyed about their current business situation and future prospects. Most people are satisfied with their current business: 82 percent of companies rate their business situation as fairly good or good. According to Erich Lehner, responsible for medium-sized companies at EY Austria, this is due to the good business in the previous year and also in the first half of 2023. “In the fall, however, the situation deteriorated,” says Lehner.
This is particularly evident in assessments of the future: for the second time in a row, more companies expect their own business situation to worsen (21%) than to improve (17%). This means that around one in five companies expect their own situation to worsen.
Upper Austrian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are particularly pessimistic; 65 took part in the survey. Here, 27 percent expect their business situation to deteriorate, and a fifth want to invest less than before. A quarter (in the previous year it was 12 percent) are planning to cut jobs, which puts Upper Austria in first place when it comes to planned job cuts compared to federal states.
Big differences depending on the industry
In a sector comparison, tourism stands out in particular: three quarters of the tourism companies surveyed (76%) are currently completely satisfied with their own business situation, followed by the financial and other service providers and social, science, education and economic sectors, where the share is in each case 65 percent is. Industrial companies are currently the least satisfied: only around two out of five companies (41%) rate their business situation as good.
Two thirds (67%) of companies in Salzburg rate the current business situation as good, followed by Vienna (60%). This year, Carinthia once again brings up the rear – here only 46 percent rate the business situation positively, in Upper Austria it is 48 percent.
The major challenges have remained the same compared to the last EY SME barometer: two out of three companies say so. that the shortage of skilled workers endangers the development of their company. More than half of the 600 respondents are worried about high or volatile raw material prices (54 percent) and the impending recession (56 percent).
You can read more about the topic here:
- IV President Knill: “We are in a real recession”
- Industry broadside against the government
- Electricity price: Unrest in Upper Austria’s industry is growing
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