The year-on-year fall in employment has gradually narrowed between March and November of last year, swinging even to a small gain in December. The apparent recovery in the labor market is, however, mainly due to irregular seasonal variations in construction employment: in December, a new type of work contract with working hours calculated on an annual basis began to show first effects. Apart from such short-term movements, total employment receded by an annual rate of 0.5 percent or by an overall number of 30,000 within the last two years. Yet, employment losses are confined to only three Federal states: Carinthia, where manufacturing industry lacks dynamism in order to compensate for massive job losses in tourism; Vorarlberg, with substantial labor shedding in the textile industry; and Vienna, where the impact of personnel cuts in the public sector, but also in market-oriented services is greatest. Employment has been rising notably in Lower Austria, Burgenland and Styria: in Lower Austria as a consequence of a policy of becoming independent in terms of the provision of central (public and private) services; in Burgenland and most recently also in Styria as a reward to progress having been made in structural adjustment in the manufacturing sector.