Alarming signals

Head of the Chamber of Commerce: “It will be even more difficult”

"Our industrial companies are investing elsewhere because it doesn't pay off in Upper Austria under the current conditions," says Doris Hummer. KTM is also relocating parts of its production.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Markus Wenzel (2))

Production is being relocated, order books are getting thinner, employees are being laid off, unemployment is rising, costs are increasing - all of this alarms Doris Hummer. "I'm not sleeping well at the moment," says the President of the Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce, who is worried about the future. Her conclusion: something has to change.

An increase of more than 5,000 job seekers compared to June 2023 and thus an increase of 21.2% - the figures published by the Public Employment Service on Monday also startled Doris Hummer: "Employees are now actually being cut across all sectors of industry."

But it is not only the developments on the job market that alarm the President of the Upper Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Hummer says about...

• The economic development: "Insolvencies are rising, sales are falling, profits are shrinking and losses are even being incurred. We are struggling with the migration of production. Investments are being made elsewhere."

• The current situation in Upper Austria: "We have lost competitiveness and location quality. Our wage costs are ten percent higher than in Germany."

• Need for action: "We no longer have time to say, well, growth will come or things will improve by the middle of the year. We have to get the structural reforms underway now."

• The question of when to implement reforms: It is quite clear to us that now a government that is in the final stages of its legislative term, so to speak, will no longer get the major reforms off the ground. But the government programs for the next period are now being written."

• Issues that need to be tackled: "We now need a clear commitment to reducing non-wage costs. Nobody wants to take anything away from people. We can't afford to duck out on these major structural reforms, such as pension reform and labor market reform, either, that's not an option."

• Outlook: "If you look at the data, you must be sleeping extremely badly as a republican leader. I'm not sleeping well at the moment because we can see what lies ahead. It will be even more difficult this year. We haven't reached the valley."