After Discussions in Austria: IHS and WIFO Against Statutory Reduction of Working Hours

OrganizationsOther ♦ Published: August 26, 2020; 15:20 ♦ (Vindobona)

Austrian economic research institutes IHS and WIFO are both against a reduction of working hours. According to the experts, training and retraining for the unemployed would be better approaches.

Austria's WIFO is against a reduction of working hours and emphasizes the importance of training for the unemployed. / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / Herbert Ortner, Vienna, Austria / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

In the debate on a statutory reduction in working hours, the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO) and the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) are against such a reduction.

They consider investments in training and retraining for the unemployed to be more sensible, Austrian newspaper "Die Presse" reported. A reduction in working hours is not a suitable means of reducing unemployment.

After all, "in individual cases it can make sense," said Martin Kocher, head of the Institute for Advanced Studies. "But in general, I don't think it is a tool that is particularly helpful to us now in the crisis."

Higher costs would be incurred by the companies. …