Biffl, Gudrun (Donau-Universität Krems) report CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Edition Donau‐Universität Krems migration 2016-02-01 The economy and the labour market 2014-15 After the severe slump in economic development in 2009, the Austrian economy recovered quickly in 2010 and 2011 (2010 +2.1%, +2.7% in 2011). In the years thereafter, however, the economic development weakened and could not recover until today. Accordingly, real GDP growth slowed down and reached 0.4% in 2014. In 2015, real GDP growth is not expected to rise beyond 0.8%. This will be the fourth year in a row with a weak economic performance. The main culprits were limited export demand for Austrian manufacturing goods - both from the Euro-zone as well as developing countries - in combination with slack domestic demand. It is a new phenomenon for Austria that economic growth falls behind the average of the Euro-zone (2014: EU19: +0.9%) and so clearly behind Germany (+1.6% in 2014). In addition to weak export demand domestic demand was lacking as real income growth of private households was minimal (+0.3% in real terms) and enterprises were reluctant to invest in view of significant uncertainties about the development of export markets. The geo-political strains between the Ukraine and Russia contributed to the restraint of all economic actors in Austria. The rapid decline of oil prices which set in towards the end of the year 2014 could not help boost confidence and economic growth. eng ISBN: 978 ‐ 3 ‐ 902505 ‐ 88 ‐ 1 https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/o:154 application/pdf Migration and Labour Integration in Austria. SOPEMI Report on Labour Migration Austria 2014 ‐ 15: Report of the Austrian SOPEMI correspondent to the OECD