Image: (Weibold)
“The labor shortage will cost our economy 150 billion euros by 2040 – that’s more than the total tax revenue for a year. These costs are predictable and avoidable – countermeasures must be taken immediately so that they don’t become real in the coming years,” warns the Chamber of Commerce -President Harald Mahrer with reference to a study by Synthesis Forschung GmbH on behalf of the Chamber and analyzes by Wifo.
“Based on these forecasts of supply and demand on the labor market, there will be a gap of 363,000 workers by 2040,” says Mahrer. He also refers to current figures from Statistics Austria, according to which there were around 206,500 vacancies in 2022. “That is more than 40 percent more than in 2021 and more than 60 percent more than in 2019,” calculates the WKÖ boss. Without countermeasures, the GDP in 2040 would be around 9 percent or almost 50 billion euros lower than with sufficient workers.
Source: Nachrichten
