Dreary May balance sheet

Unemployment up: 351,151 without a job

The number of jobseekers rose in May: 351,151 people were registered as unemployed (272,997) or in training (78,154) with the Public Employment Service (AMS) at the end of May. The unemployment rate amounted to 6.4 percent.

Unemployment rose slightly less in May than in February, March and April. Compared to the same month last year, however, the number of unemployed and AMS training participants rose by 9.5% or 30,549 people.

Stabilization "is conceivable"
 "Nevertheless, it is probably too early to speak of an economic upswing, but at least there are increasing signs - with an optimistic basic attitude - that the recession in Austria is slowly coming to an end," says AMS Director Johannes Kopf. Unemployment in Austria "will therefore not fall for some time yet, but at least a stabilization of the situation in individual federal states or sectors seems conceivable in the course of the year".

Training and further education "an important goal"
"In the period 2008-2023, the average unemployment rate at the end of May was 7.2 percent and therefore 0.8 percentage points higher than at present," said Minister of Labor and Economic Affairs Martin Kocher (ÖVP) in a press release. Among other things, "the training and further education of people with low formal educational qualifications is an important labor market policy goal in order to improve individual labor market prospects in the long term".