Austrian Finance Minister Blümel increased funds for short-time working to €12 billion. Financial police will carry out priority checks to detect fraudulent use of funds.
”With coronavirus short-time working, we have created a model that is unique in Europe to keep unemployment as low as possible at a difficult time. Especially in the current phase, it is important to be able to resume operations with well-trained, long-standing employees. Short-time working is a sensible measure to get through the crisis. We are therefore increasing funds for short-time working, which have already amounted to € 10 billion, to a total of € 12 billion. Especially at the present moment, it makes sense to implement a safety buffer to protect jobs”, said Finance Minister Gernot Blümel in a press conference.
The decline in the number of applications for short-time working shows that companies are now seeing less need for it, which is an important sign that the economy is rapidly recovering.
Nevertheless, funds are being increased, since with the current volume of applications, any new applications could not otherwise be processed.
Also, almost 5,000 control notifications have been sent to the AMS and 846 to the Construction Workers’ Annual Leave and Severance Pay Fund.
