Austria: social partner agreement for faster access to partial unemployment

On 01 April, the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB) and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKÖ) announced that they had reached an agreement “for maintaining company operations”, which in particular provides for faster procedures for partial-unemployment applications. Going forward, the formerly mandatory WKÖ agreement for each request concerning “Covid-19 partial unemployment” (c.f. article No. 11724) will in principle already have been acquired. The “Austrian Employment Service” (AMS) can thus immediately give provisional agreement to any completed case and submit it for approval to the trade union section that is jointly managing unemployment insurance. The trade union section also undertakes to only carry out spot checks and to reply (agreement or refusal) within 48 hours. “What unites us is a shared desire for many people as possible to keep their jobs,” said ÖGB President Wolfgang Katzian. Neither Government agreement nor Parliamentary approval is necessary since the social partners alone are entitled to decide on the issue of partial unemployment. Link to the AMS forms on Kurzarbeit – Covid19 can be found here.