Economic challenges in Austria and the “demographically driven labour shortage” marked the country’s job market last year, a new survey by Stepstone has highlighted.
In 2022, around 531,000 jobs were advertised in the country, a decrease of 6 percent over the year before, the survey, which looked into job advertisements in 22 print media and 22 job boards throughout Austria, found.
Despite the drop in job ads, specific industries continue to have a high number of vacancies, with a large amount of advertisements placed throughout the year.
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The sector with the most advertised vacancies was “Technical training occupations” (Technische Ausbildungsberufe), with approximately 64,000 job advertisements. These occupations include different types of technicians, including those working in construction, automotive technology, welding or electrical engineering.
The second most sought-after occupational group was IT, with approximately 53,100 job advertisements), followed by Finance and Accounting (53,000), hotel and hospitality (50,200) and sales (49,500).
There was a massive increase in demand in certain sectors, particularly in nursing (+24 percent) and for doctors (+18 percent). Never before have so many vacant nursing and medical assistant positions been advertised as in the second half of 2023, the survey showed.
Workers were sought for a total of 5,084 vacancies in the fourth quarter alone. Upper Austria is the most affected region, with 1,486 vacancies, closely followed by 1,023 vacancies in Lower Austria and 862 in Vienna.
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Doctors are also in greater demand than ever before: More than 5,120 doctors were sought in the previous year.
There have never been as many tenders and vacancies in the healthcare sector as in 2023, Dürhammer comments on the development.
Where are the jobs?
A comparison of the states shows that Carinthia is the only federal state with an increase in jobs in 2023. Last year, around 26,000 jobs were advertised there, five percent more than in 2022.
Vienna recorded the sharpest decline in the number of vacancies at -13 percent. Still, it was the state with the highest number of advertised jobs, at around 140,000. The capital was followed by Upper Austria (around 112,000), Lower Austria (around 62,700), Styria (around 63,300) and Salzburg (around 51,500).
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“Demographically driven unemployment is influencing the general trend towards a labour shortage – regardless of economic cycles”, said Nikolai Dürhammer, managing director of Stepstone Austria and Switzerland.
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