Labour Market and Skills

The Austrian Institute for SME Research has provided assistance to the government of Upper Austria in redesigning their labour market strategy with a focus on supply of skilled labour. This includes an analysis of the regional labour market (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats); the development of possible future scenarios, a system of strategic objectives and an impact model of the strategy; the definition of corresponding indicators; and the development and testing of a monitoring system.

The study analyses the effects of digitalisation and industry 4.0 on the economy on Lower Austria. The focus is on the changes with regard to (levels of) qualifications and professions that will be of special relevance in a digital economy. It will also look at which professions will most likely be affected by the rationalisation potential caused by digital technologies. Following this, the study will also develop recommendations on how to adapt the current training opportunities of the Public Employment Service in Lower Austria.

The national framework conditions are of high importance to maintain and strengthen the competitiveness of enterprises in an increasingly globalised and digitised economy. Against this background the study analyses, if the current framework conditions in Austria promote or hinder competitiveness of Austrian enterprises - especially SMEs.

Long-term unemployed persons represent a main target group of labour market policy as they entail various hampering factors with view to a reintegration at the labour market. On the one hand financial/social support has to be provided, on the other hand tailored measures have to be designed. In the framework of this study active and mainly passive support measures for long-term unemployed in selected European countries are analysed. These measures are compared with the Austrian support instruments.

The situation at the labour market for specific groups (low skilled persons, migrants, 50+, etc.) becomes more problematic. One of the political solutions is early intervention. To improve such measures this study analyses early intervention measures in Germany and draws lessons learnt for Austria. Methods applied are literature and document analysis, expert interviews and case studies.

This project analyses and assesses the labour market situation and development (labour demand and supply) at the level of occupations and qualifications in the regions of Upper Austria. This is done based on an in-depth analysis of regionalised labour market and educational data, and regional focus groups. The results serve as a basis for policies and initiatives to improve matching on regional labour markets.

In this study PIAAC-data concerning ICT-competences are analysed. Research activities and labour market concepts in Austria and selected countries (Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Sweden and UK) are described. Furthermore, international labour market programmes and initiatives (good practices) to ameliorate these competences in Germany and the Netherlands are identified.

The objectives of this study were to analyse the employment situation of young people in Switzerland and the framework conditions in the labour market, the identification of good practices of support for young people in the labour market in Switzerland, and conclusions and lessons learned for designing support measures for young people in the Austrian labour market.

The study investigates the use of competence measurement and assessment among European enterprises. The focus was on the purposes of skills assessment, the methods used and the quality of results obtained. In this respect, there were clear differences between company types and professional functions in companies. The research was primarily based on surveys and case studies in 10 European countries.