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You have better recipes yourself, deputy club chief Jörg Leichtfried, women’s spokesperson Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek, social spokesperson Josef Muchitsch and industry spokesperson Rainer Wimmer said at a press conference before a special session at the National Council on the labor market. Unemployment will increase to 500,000 people in the coming weeks or months, there is a risk that 10,000 young people will not find an apprenticeship in winter. “What is completely lacking here is the government’s commitment, willingness and experience to change anything,” Leichtfried said. The only thing that has been heard in recent months, “in those innumerable press conferences, with those hours of babbling where nothing is said”, was the constitution of more working groups. That’s cynical, he suspects, “this government in Austria doesn’t care about the people.” Leichtfried also warned members of the government that they had not sought a conversation with those affected by the layoffs at the ATB.
Heinisch-Hosek accused the government that its crisis management is male, “one has the feeling that men do politics for men.” Like Sunday, she called for a “feminist stimulus package”, in particular 1,700 tax-free euros as the minimum wage. Given their lower income on average, this would help women up to twice as much as men.
Muchitsch also accused the government of having defeated labor market policy for 184 days since the outbreak of the crown crisis and that “nothing had been done to stimulate the economy.” At the same time, Muchitsch complained that the government had not accepted the SPÖ’s proposals. Wimmer, in turn, called for more programs to train youth. Youth unemployment, which could affect 50,000 people in winter, “does not have to exist” if there are enough training programs.
The SPÖ politicians continue to demand an increase in unemployment benefit to 70 per cent of the last salary or by an average of 300 euros per month (from currently just over 1,000 euros per month). That would cost € 120 million a month, Muchitsch calculated. The reduction of unemployment benefits is also out of the question for the SPÖ, such proposals are far from reality, “the longer unemployment lasts, the more there is to support,” said Muchitsch.
