Industry representative

“The jobs are not coming back”

Kari Ochsner, President of the Federation of Austrian Industries Lower Austria, and Joachim Haindl-Grutsch, Managing Director of the Federation of Austrian Industries Upper Austria, (right) are highly alarmed.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/IV OÖ/Roland Pelzl, IV NÖ/Christian Holzinger)

High wage costs, expensive energy and a slump in demand in several sectors - all this is putting more and more domestic industrial companies in a precarious situation. Representatives from Upper Austria and Lower Austria are therefore now calling the future federal government to account in no uncertain terms.

A new cost-cutting course at automotive supplier Stiwa, the decision to close the Kiefel packaging plant in Micheldorf, W&H's decision to close the plastics competence center in Schalchen - apart from the turbulence surrounding Pierer Mobility, the recession and upheavals in individual sectors are leaving ever deeper scars in the economy, which is costing jobs.

"It's now a matter of getting down to business"
"In the more than 50 days since the National Council elections, jobs in industry have been lost every day and will not be coming back. One job lost in industry takes two more with it at suppliers and service providers," says Joachim Haindl-Grutsch. The Managing Director of the Federation of Austrian Industries in Upper Austria is calling on the new federal government to come up with a short-term rescue package for the location: "It's now a question of what's at stake for our industrial location."

"Genuine restructuring instead of further reforms"
Kari Ochsner, President of the Federation of Austrian Industries in Lower Austria, is calling for a reorientation of Austrian industrial policy: "We don't need any further reforms, but a genuine restructuring of the conditions of the location, which must finally be made fit for the future again."