Rejection of the SPÖ's Proposal

Fit or Unfit for Work? NEOS Wants a New Intermediate Level

AK President Renate Anderl and ÖGB Chief Wolfgang Katzian (right) want a “bonus-malus system”—but Johannes Gasser has already rejected the idea outright.(Bild: Krone-Collage/Mathis Fotografie, Mario Urbantschitsch, Eva Manhart)

To keep older people in the workforce, the NEOS want a new system for determining who is still considered able to work and who is not. The governing party has clearly rejected the SPÖ’s “bonus-malus system” for companies with many or few employees over the age of 50.

People over 50 who lose their jobs often find it difficult to re-enter the workforce. To counter this, the SPÖ previously proposed a “bonus-malus system”—that is, rewards for companies with many older employees and penalties for those with few. On Monday, the Chamber of Labor and the Austrian Trade Union Federation (ÖGB) plan to make another push for this model. But even before it’s been presented, the NEOS have already clearly rejected it.

Fines won’t fix a bad back!

Johannes Gasser, NEOS-Sozialsprecher

Bild: NEOS

That’s because they see the problem less in the companies themselves and more in the health status of the older generation. According to the NEOS, 41 percent of unemployed people over 50 have health limitations, and among 55-year-olds, the figure is as high as 45 percent. “Fines don’t heal a bad back, don’t create qualifications, and don’t get anyone back to work,” said NEOS social affairs spokesperson Johannes Gasser, who is proposing the concept of “partial work capacity”—agreed upon in the government program—as an alternative.

Who, then, is still considered unable to work?
Anyone who, after decades in a physically demanding job, can no longer work full-time should be able to remain in their job with reduced working hours and a financial subsidy. “Until now, our system has been very much based on black-and-white thinking: Either you’re fully able to work or not at all. But there are plenty of shades of gray in between,” says Gasser. For this to succeed, he adds, early retraining, targeted assistance with re-entry into the workforce, and a reform of rehabilitation benefits are also needed. He considers the demand for fines against companies to be “a red herring.”