WKÖ boss Mahrer calls for stricter reasonableness provisions for the unemployed – economy –

More than 800,000 people in Austria are unemployed or have a short-term job. Now in the fall, due to a large number of anticipated business failures, mass unemployment is projected to rise further. And it is precisely at this moment that the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Harald Mahrer, wants to toughen the provisions of reasonableness for the unemployed.

In light of the crown-related labor market crisis and the regional shortage of skilled workers, the Chamber of Commerce (WKÖ) is pushing for greater worker mobility and more skills.

On Wednesday, President Harald Mahrer and Secretary General Karlheinz Kopf presented a “package of measures to create more dynamism in the national labor market.”

The Chamber of Commerce requires job seekers to be more flexible when traveling or relocating for work reasons, so they want to talk about the reasonableness of travel time.

Despite high unemployment figures, “countless companies” are looking for workers. However, the unemployed would often not live where jobs are offered. “There is more to do with commuting and moving.”

The bottom line is that this should mean nothing more than: In the future, job seekers should also go to work in more distant federal states. The WKÖ stresses that it is not “the great coercion” that leads to the goal, but the incentives.

Naturally, support for Mahrer’s demands comes from the president of the Salzburg Chamber of Commerce, Peter Buchmüller. It says, reinforcing the support: “The WKS already pointed out in June that, for example, the reasonableness of job seekers is too generous in light of the current record unemployment. Companies still complain that they are not getting qualified workers. That is why the review is leading. There’s no getting around the rules of reasonableness. “

You will temporarily lose unemployment benefit or unemployment benefit if you refuse to take a job. Even if you do not attend a recycling or recycling, reject a measure to re-enter the labor market, or show very little initiative to find employment, you may lose your right.

For all these points, the first time you lose your unemployment benefit or emergency assistance for six weeks. If you repeatedly refuse, you will lose money for eight weeks. The increase in the blocking period to eight weeks applies until a new right is acquired.

Other tightening screws to prevent unemployment from solidifying are declining unemployment benefits and a reduction in ancillary wage costs, WKÖ chairman Harald Mahrer said in Vienna on Wednesday. Reductions in working hours, as urged by worker representatives, are categorically rejected by trade representatives. “The goal should be to make the cake bigger and not do the opposite,” Harald Mahrer said Wednesday.

The tone between the social partners has become harsher.

The union accused the treasurers of apparently continuing to impose a ban on thinking about unemployment. “A reduction in normal working hours brings new jobs,” said Barbara Teiber, president of the GPA-djp union, in a broadcast. “The stubbornness does not help to deal with the crisis of the labor market.” You cannot wait and hope that the economy will recover in some way.

The “90 by 80” model provides for a subsidized reduction in working hours, which also benefits the company, the union said. Asking the unemployed like Mahrer to move to find a job is unreasonable and does not solve a single problem. “You need more jobs,” says the union.

In the Federation of Industries, however, it is feared that the reduction of working hours will put jobs at risk. The 4th President Georg Knill spoke today of “dangerous experiments” that would work in the completely wrong direction, and of a “challenge to employment”. The Federation of Industrialists considers the Chamber of Commerce’s proposals to increase labor mobility to be sensible, as the east-west divide in the labor market still exists.

Supra-regional mediation of the AMS should be expanded here.