According to OECD criteria, Austria is initially in the lower middle range when it comes to requirements for the unemployed. In contrast, Austria is somewhat stricter than most countries when it comes to long-term unemployed people with emergency assistance. Compared to most of the Nordic countries, Austria is less strict when it comes to the allocation and control of unemployment benefits.
However, the differences are not overwhelming. Finland is even less strict, only Sweden is significantly more rigid, shows the index (Strictness of Activation Requirements) used by the OECD. This in turn consists of a good dozen sub-factors. It shows that Austria is not particularly strict when it comes to penalties, such as the reduction of unemployment benefits.
Particularly little consideration for occupational protection
Mobility and availability are also less required in Austria than in many other countries. But Austria is one of the strictest countries when it comes to actively looking for a job. It is also noticeable that Austria pays particularly little attention to occupational protection – the unemployed have to accept any job if the pay is in the same range as before unemployment.
When it comes to dealing with the unemployed, Austria is stricter than the Nordic countries – probably because there is hardly any difference between unemployment and emergency aid in Austria, while in Denmark, for example, the pressure is easing, says Lukas Lehner, who works at Oxford University on the subject of unemployment researches.
However, Lehner points out that the provisions stating what can be expected of the unemployed in a new job are only one aspect of the design of unemployment benefits. The most important question is whether there are enough jobs at all. If there is only one job for every three job seekers, the decisive factor for two thirds of those affected is that there is no work. Only when there is basically a vacancy does “matching” become relevant, i.e. the question of whether the qualifications of the unemployed match the vacancies. Only in third place are individual considerations as to whether the work is perceived as reasonable and accepted. Only then is it about the salary or the required mobility.
Factors are widely spread
These individual factors that prevent someone from taking a job are widely spread, according to Lehner: It can be due to the amount of the payment compared to the unemployment benefit, the lack of opportunity or willingness to move, but it can also be due to the care obligations of the unemployed or to health restrictions exist when a job is rejected.
In this context, the much-discussed gradual reduction (degressivity) of unemployment benefits is only “a technical detail,” says Lehner. “I don’t understand why this particular detail is so present”. Because the degressive pressure would only work where there is a job – in terms of qualifications – and the amount of unemployment benefit is decisive for not accepting it. This measure is not suitable for reducing unemployment. There is even a tendency for countries with higher unemployment benefits to have less unemployment – even if Lehner emphasizes that no causal relationship has been proven.
