Job increasingly dangerous

Fighting on many fronts: Police forces at the limit!

Police at the limit: the workload is increasing, the job is becoming more dangerous.

(Bild: P. Huber)

Austrian police officers worked almost five million hours of overtime last year. While the workload is increasing, new recruits are not keeping pace with retirements, warns the SPÖ. In addition, the job of police officers is becoming increasingly dangerous and the number of injuries on duty is rising.

The personnel offensive of the Federal Police will be consistently continued this year. The aim is to include 2500 police officers in basic training, announced Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) and Federal Police Director Michael Takács in January. The reasons given for the positive trend in applications included a better starting salary, free climate ticket for police students, reimbursement of costs for driving licenses and more relaxed tattoo rules.

Virtually no "work-life balance"
However, there is another side to the coin: a work-life balance - an important factor for younger students - is virtually non-existent in the police service. The lack of personnel and overtime are enormous. A veritable series of inquiries by SPÖ security spokesman Reinhold Einwallner has now revealed this: Austria's police forces worked almost five million hours of overtime last year (see chart below).

Overtime is considered a rich source of extra income for the police. In the long term, however, the excessive workload has a negative impact.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV)

In simple terms, this means that officers now spend almost a whole month working extra hours at the police station and on the streets. Although there were still 6.7 million hours of overtime in 2016, Einwallner still finds the situation unsustainable: "Five million hours of overtime a year is an enormous additional workload. Pressure, stress, frustration and resignation are all on the rise and health complaints are increasing. Our police officers deserve a clear roadmap from the Minister of the Interior to reduce their workload," warns Einwallner.

Overtime is just the "tip of the iceberg"
However, overtime does not cover the full extent of overtime in the police force. What is not reflected in the overtime statistics, but goes beyond the regulated normal working hours, are the notorious journal hours. These are incurred by civil servants on so-called rotational duty. If these are added to the overtime hours, it comes to more than ten million hours that Austria's police officers work outside of their "normal working hours". This means there is rarely enough time for their loved ones.

Police at the limit: the workload is increasing, the job is becoming more dangerous.

(Bild: P. Huber)

According to the SPÖ, Vienna in particular will soon have to come up with something. The capital's repeated appeals to the federal government to finally improve police staffing levels have not yet produced the desired result. The tenor is that staffing levels are unacceptable.

Dangerous operations: 1200 injuries among officers
For local police officers, serving the public is not only paved with horrendous overtime, but also with a huge number of minor and serious injuries. In the previous year alone, the Ministry of the Interior registered exactly 1,200 injuries - 53 of which were even classified as "serious injuries" - caused by third parties.

Compared to 2022 (1121 injuries) and 2021 (1017), this is a new sad record. Although the responsible authorities point out that injuries and non-injured officers are counted and that more law enforcement officers are now on duty in the country, this does not fundamentally improve the corresponding statistics. The fact is that the propensity for violence between Lake Constance and Lake Neusiedl is on the rise, and the dedicated law enforcement officers are feeling it first hand.