Austria's new coalition government took office on 3 March, after five months of negotiations. The coalition is made up of the country's conservative (ÖVP), social democratic (SPÖ) and liberal (NEOS) parties. Although the programme presented by Chancellor Christian Stocker (ÖVP) and social affairs minister Corinna Schumann (NEOS) does not include a major labour market reform, it does provide for rationalisation measures such as the reform of educational leave, but the approach to bolstering full-time work emains vague.
At the end of February 2025, 429,940 people were registered as unemployed or in training with the Austrian employment service (AMS). The Austrian unemployment rate is now 8.1%, compared with 7.6% a year ago. This is not “an easy start for a new federal government”, commented Johannes Kopf, co-president of the AMS, who presented the unemployment figures on the same day as the formation of the new government. Kopf expects the unemployment rate to continue to rise during the year. “It is all...
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Article authors
Thomas Schnee
Freelance