After years on the fast track, Austrian businesses are now faced with a flat growth rate. The structure of Austria's industry and exports shows little dynamics, innovation leaves much to desire, the labour market suffers from quantitative and qualitative discrepancies, the national budget and social insurance system labour under financing problems. None of these problems is in any way recent, but they were all veiled by the rapid growth rates during the catching-up process and an emulation of innovations from abroad. Both the problems and their intensification through faltering growth were mostly discovered and pinpointed in good time by economic researchers, but politics and business were lackadaisical in searching for solutions. As to the possible causes, especially with regard to weak innovation, there is a need for more in-depth research.