An Austrian study has indicated that Austria is threatened by a real shortage of skilled workers with the legalization of asylum and immigration in the country.
According to a study on the development of employment in the Austrian export industry conducted by the Institute for Economic Research on behalf of the Ministry of Labor. Between 2022 and 2027 alone, around 540,000 baby boomers will retire.
The study, published by the Austrian website Kurier, indicated that high labor productivity cannot compensate for the shortage of workers, and from 2030 onwards, Austria's export economy will suffer from a shortage of skilled workers, which higher productivity cannot compensate for.
The shortage particularly affects the medium-skilled sector as the baby boomer generation retires and the number of younger generations shrinks.
Austria is considered a country that relies heavily on its exports, with the export sector accounting for around 30% of the country's total employment.
The study pointed out that measures to combat the shortage include increasing labor force participation and immigration as well as innovation and digitization.
According to the forecasts, it will not be possible to completely replace these lost workers with younger people because subsequent generations have much lower birth rates.
The export industry accounts for around 30 percent of total employment in Austria, with a much higher proportion of men, especially in the production sector as well as in agriculture and forestry.
For the study, authors Robert Stehrer and Stella Zilian compared different population development scenarios with the expected demand for workers.
Even in the very positive scenario of an increase in the labor supply by 0.4 percent per year due to increased immigration and increased participation in the labor force until the beginning of the 2030s, labor productivity in Austria must increase by 1 percent per year in order to achieve moderate GDP growth of 1.5 percent (average value from 2011 to 2019).
According to the study, the coming labor shortage tends to affect women, those with intermediate and higher qualifications, and academic professions. “In view of the already obvious shortage of skilled workers in industry, all alarm bells should ring among those responsible. “There is a fear that model companies in particular could move away if there is no solution,” warns Robert Stehrer, scientific director of the WIW and co-author of the study.
The economists recommend well-known themes for measures against the shortage of skilled workers: increasing the participation of women, older people and migrants in the workforce, as well as using and promoting innovation and digitalization in companies in order to increase labor productivity. In addition, more skilled workers from abroad should be recruited and retained in the country through attractive framework conditions. “Austria will have to work hard here so as not to miss out on the opportunity to join other countries,” emphasizes Zilian. It also faces increasingly fierce international competition to attract the best minds.
The study concludes with a warning that Austria will face significant challenges in competing with other countries for the best skills and competencies.
According to statistics from AMS, a platform for job seekers in Austria, around 24,000 Syrian nationals are currently working in permanent jobs across Austria, the largest number of foreign workers in the country, and 4,000 of them are women. Another 27,000 are classified as unemployed or in training, and there are also around 5,000 people working marginally.
In comparison of sectors, most Syrians work in trade, followed by the services sector, where most of them have found work in tourism. Many of them work in precarious jobs as temporary workers, bike messengers or delivery workers - these are summarised in the group "economic services".
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