Photo: (Volker Weihbold)
The trust of Austrians in the public sector has fallen sharply in recent years. Blue light organisations, small, local grocers as well as science and research are most popular with the population, while trust in the federal government, energy suppliers and mineral oil companies has been severely lost. This was the result of a current online survey by the Linz Market Institute.
Last week, 1,000 people were surveyed, nationally representative of the population aged 16 and over. For 76 percent of them, trust in the public sector has fallen in recent years, for 17 percent it has remained the same and for five percent it has increased. Above all, people aged 40 and over lost trust, but among 16 to 29 year olds it increased at nine percent.
government lost a lot
The federal government has lost the most trust among the population: 65 percent have lost it heavily (41) and somewhat (24). Energy suppliers (including electricity providers) and mineral oil companies (including petrol stations) have also fallen in the rankings, with 67 and 60 percent withdrawing their goodwill respectively. The ORF (56 percent) and the EU (51 percent) also lost trust. In return, small, local grocers (41 percent), blue light organizations (30 percent) and science and research (25 percent) gained trust.
A lot of trust in the police, fire brigade and ambulance
This picture confirms the question as to which areas confidence is currently strongest. 38 percent of the survey participants named the blue light organizations such as the police, ambulance, fire brigade, 27 percent small, local grocers, 21 percent science and research, 18 percent the health service and 16 percent the Federal President. The front runners at the other end – with the least amount of trust – were the federal government (28 percent), mineral oil companies (18 percent) and social media such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok (17 percent).
Source: Nachrichten
