More and more unemployed people in Austria: 2025 went so badly

The Unemployment in Austria rises and rises. There has been hardly any recovery in the last year and a half. The status quo: It was almost the end of November 400,000 people at the AMS reported as unemployed or in training. This is an increase of 4 percent compared to the previous year.

An end to the negative trend is not really in sight. The Inflation is still high and the international indicators remain poor. The AMS does not expect a decline until mid-2026. Until then, the numbers will probably continue to rise.

Unemployment in the districts

A look at the districts shows that Vienna in particular stands out. In Favorites and Brigittenau The unemployment rate is highest at 17 percent.

In the other federal states show Steyr (12,5%), Wiener Neustadt (11.7%) and Graz (10.7%) had the highest values. Unemployment, however, is lowest in Rohrbach in Upper Austria (2.2%).

Significant increase to 2024

Aside from the usual seasonal fluctuations (higher unemployment in the winter months), every single month of 2025 had higher unemployment than the year before. The increase was particularly strong in June: while around 264,000 people were registered as unemployed in 2024, this number rose to over 288,000 this year. An increase of 9.3 percent.

Women were particularly hard hit by unemployment. In November, around 146,000 women were unemployed, an unemployment rate of 7.3 percent. The highest value since May 2021. On average for the year, the number of unemployed women rose by 8.42 percent compared to 2024, while the number for men was only 2.83 percent.

However, the numbers increased across all categories. Around 6 percent more foreigners were unemployed in 2025 than in 2024, and workers over 50 were also severely affected (an increase of 5.6 percent). This age group is also particularly affected by the tight labor market. Because companies hold back on hiring new employees, they stay with the AMS for longer and often slip from unemployment benefit into emergency assistance.

Unemployment is only falling in Carinthia

But how has unemployment changed in the federal states this year? Wien Although it has the highest unemployment rate, compared to 2024 the numbers have “only” increased by 4.95 percent. The increase in is particularly noticeable Upper Austria: From around 35,500 unemployed on average in 2024, this figure rose to around 39,000 this year. An increase of 9.9 percent.

And yet, despite all the rising unemployment figures, there is one federal state in which, on average, fewer people were looking for work in 2025: Carinthia. The SPÖ-governed state recorded a slight decrease of 0.77 percent. This is also due, among other things, to the fact that the number of employed people is constantly declining.

Austria in EU comparison

While unemployment in Austria has risen steadily in recent months, it has changed little in the EU and the euro area. According to Eurostat figures, the rate in the EU remained unchanged from the previous month at 6.0 percent. According to Eurostat calculations, the rate in Austria was 5.8 percent in October, which puts it in the middle of the European range Portugal and the Slovakia classified.

The countries with the highest unemployment rates remain Spain (10.5 percent) and Finland (10.3 percent). Malta (3.1 percent), the Czech Republic and Poland (3.2 percent each) performed best.