Tricky situation

AMS budget decreases, need for qualification increases

The number of people coming to the AMS is increasing.

(Bild: Jürgen Fuchs)

More than 33,500 Upper Austrians were looking for a job in July 2024 - an increase of 16% compared to July 2023! The rise in unemployment primarily affects those people in the province above the Enns who have only completed compulsory schooling. The AMS is responding to this, even though the budget will continue to be cut.

A look at the labor market figures for July is sobering: There were increases in all areas compared to 2023 - from job seekers to training participants. On the other hand, job vacancies fell: there were 7944 fewer vacancies, and apprenticeships were also down.

"The general economic situation gives us pause for thought," says Markus Litzlbauer, Deputy Managing Director of the Upper Austrian Public Employment Service, "economic growth is too low for a sustainable reduction in unemployment.

We have to focus more and more on investing everything available to us in qualifications. It is all the better if we succeed in doing this with work-related qualifications, because this has the greatest success on the labor market and the greatest success in terms of sustainable employment.

Markus Litzlbauer, stellvertretender Geschäftsführer des AMS OÖ

Bild: AMS OÖ/WeibsBilder

It remains to be seen when the demand turbo will ignite again. "At the beginning of the year, we were confident that the situation would improve noticeably in the second half of the year or in the last quarter, but now we are more likely to be in 2025," says Litzlbauer.

"Are still able to act"
In particular, people who have only completed compulsory schooling are now becoming increasingly unemployed. How do those responsible assess the threat of further cuts to the AMS budget? "We are still able to act, we can still work," says Litzlbauer, not entering into any discussions. Like AMS Managing Director Iris Schmidt, he says: "We are continuing to focus very strongly on training with everything we have at our disposal."