The corona crisis has an enormous impact on the Austrian labour market, show the latest data published by Statistics Austria. Starting with the national shutdown in mid-March 2020, unemployment increased almost instantly.
More than 35.000 job losses were registered on 15 March alone. Thus, the national labour market agency recorded massive inflows (+65.7% compared to March of the previous year) into the unemployment register.
By end of March, there were 504.345 (+199 934) persons registered as unemployed.
Yet, this situation has no immediate impact on unemployment according to the international definition, as latest results of the Austrian Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics Austria show.
However, there is a clear decrease in the number of people in employment (-77.500; -1.8%) and a corresponding increase of economically inactive persons available to work but not seeking a job (+51.3% to 160 500).
At the same time, 173.100 people stated that they had not worked at all or worked less than during a regular working week due to slack work in March 2020, this is seventeen times more than in March 2019.
