Image: VOLKER Weihbold
According to forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Austria’s economy will grow by 0.4 percent this year and by 1.1 percent in 2024. This means that the forecast for the coming year is even more cautious than that of the domestic economic researchers IHS and Wifo.
Despite these prospects, the mood among Austrians is improving: That is the core message of the economic barometer that the Linz pollster Spectra compiles every quarter for the OÖN and the federal state newspapers. 3000 Austrians were interviewed for this.
The consumer mood picked up speed again in the first quarter. The tendency to hold back the money has decreased by two percentage points: “That’s not much, but the trend is going in the right direction,” says Spectra Managing Director Peter Bruckmüller. But there is still room for improvement here: the delta between those who drive consumption and those who slow it down is currently 29 percentage points: “With a value of 15 percentage points, we would be back to normal.”
Man as a creature of habit
The trend reversal in economic optimism is even clearer than in the consumer climate: the number of pessimists has fallen by 15 percentage points within three months (from a very high level). And that despite the subdued prospects mentioned at the beginning and inflation, which is still high: according to a flash estimate by Statistics Austria, this was 9.1 percent in March. “People have got used to the situation to a certain extent. The current situation has become a kind of normality.”
economic barometer
propensity to save
income
Country
unemployment
confidence/concern
Source: Nachrichten
