01.07.2020

Employment Decline Slows Down in May

WIFO Research Brief: COVID-19 Pandemic

With the easing of COVID-19-related restrictions in trade, personal services and restaurants at the beginning of May 2020, the decline in employment was slightly lower at –4.0 percent in May than in April (–5.0 percent, March –4.9 percent). In a recent WIFO Research Brief, Julia Bock-Schappelwein, Ulrike Huemer and Walter Hyll examine the employment situation in Austria.

The rise in unemployment (including persons in training), after peaking in mid-April, is at +50.7 percent in May also slightly less pronounced than in April (+58.2 percent, March +52.5 percent). The unemployment rate fell to 11.5 percent (April: 12.7 percent, March: 12.3 percent). The number of people in marginal employment, which are not reported in the official figures of the Main Association of Social Security Institutions, has also fallen massively since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, the decline in employment amounted to –12.6 percent or –43,909 to 305,628 (April –17.8 percent, March –21.5 percent) and is currently at a level like 10 years ago (2011: 307,741).