Around 100 measures

New pact in the fight against unemployment

(Bild: Martin Pröll Photography)

Nowhere has unemployment risen in March compared to the previous year as much as in Upper Austria. Yet a so-called pact for work and qualification has been in place here for years. Is it no longer enough? What additional measures are necessary? This is what the SPÖ wanted to know in the state parliament today.

In March, 20.8 percent more people were unemployed in Upper Austria than a year ago - the highest increase in a federal state comparison. Alarmed by this development, the SPÖ asked Markus Achleitner (ÖVP), Upper Austrian State Councillor for Economic Affairs, what additional measures he intends to take to counteract this.

Pact to be signed on Friday
With "almost 100 measures", replied the state councillor, without listing them all. According to Achleitner, the program, which was developed at the Upper Austrian Future Forum on Tuesday and Wednesday by the province of Upper Austria, the Chamber of Commerce and Labor and the Federation of Austrian Industries, will be signed and presented tomorrow, Friday.

Unemployment State Councillor Achleitner cuts funding for inter-company training workshops, even though Upper Austria has the highest increase in unemployment figures.

Sabine Engleitner-Neu, SPÖ-Klubobfrau im Landtag

"Qualification close to the workplace"
The aim of this revised Pact for Employment and Qualification (PAQ) is to "get people back into work as quickly as possible". Many of the new measures would therefore be aimed at "job-related qualification".

Red criticism of the "unemployment state council"
SPÖ party leader Sabine Engleitner-Neu is unimpressed: "Unemployment figures are rising the fastest in Upper Austria. At the same time, Unemployment Councilor Achleitner is cutting funding for inter-company training workshops in the PAQ by three million euros - a self-abandonment of Upper Austrian labor market policy." Achleitner contradicts this: funds have not been cut, but the period for the Restart program in the PAQ has been reduced from one to six months "because the best placement rate is between three and five months".