AMS boss: No decline in unemployment this year and “no end of the world” due to AI

The head of the Employment Service (AMS) referred to the limited resources for short-time work. The budget for this year was 20 million euros, said Kopf in the business journalists’ club. The economic researchers from Wifo and IHS predicted stagnation or a slight increase in unemployment figures at the end of March. Depending on the length of the Iran crisis and the level of energy prices, economic developments could deteriorate noticeably.

Restricted educational leave starts at the beginning of June

Kopf is watching the current government negotiations surrounding the 2027/28 double budget with great interest. This year the AMS is responsible Promotion budget for active labor market policy of around 1.3 billion euros available. The AMS’s active labor market policy includes the promotion of vocational education and training (including training) as well as mobility and temporary, supported employment in commercial companies or social enterprises. Due to the current economic situation, Kopf hopes that the AMS funding budget will be “little or not affected by any cuts” in the budget negotiations.

The AMS board did not want to communicate suggestions for savings to the budget negotiators through the media. The restrictions on educational leave and small additional earnings in addition to unemployment benefits decided by the government last year will affect the budget from this year. The stricter one starts on June 8th Successor model for educational leave. The training period is endowed with a maximum of 150 million euros per year. There was no upper funding limit for educational leave and it recently cost around 600 million euros per year.

AMS boss: No job loss due to AI

Kopf is not a supporter of a “job loss/doomsday scenario” caused by artificial intelligence (AI). In the long term, Austria will lose “tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of jobs” due to AI, but many new jobs would be created. It is still too early to make a precise forecast about the impact of AI on the labor market.

The AMS board wants a public training budget for employees, including for AI qualification. “It would make a lot of sense if our employees could handle this technology.” This is also a competitive advantage for Austria.