Description (en)
The economic crisis of 2008/09 hit the small Austrian open economy severely — GDP declined by
3.8% in 2009 and the economic shock wave hit the labour market more than expected. Employment
of wage and salary earners declined by 1.5% (total employment by ‐0.9%) and some 67,000 workers
or 2% of the workforce were on short term work (Kurzarbeit), an active labour market policy measure
to reduce the cost pressure of falling demand on enterprises and the shock of unemployment on the
workforce.
The countercyclical employment and active labour market policies implemented had thus a two‐
pronged approach. On the one hand they were to shield workers and their families from an abrupt
deterioration of family income; on the other hand they were intent on reducing the impact of the
decline in demand of goods and services on the production costs of export oriented enterprises. The
policies implemented did not, however, have a vision of long‐run policy reorientation towards an
increasingly knowledge driven society in which a sound social economy and infrastructure represents
the backbone of sustainable economic growth.