Stefan Schiman at the Workshop "Labour Market Economics"
The liberalisation of labour market access for several Eastern European countries, including the direct neighbours Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Slovakia, led to a shock of labour supply for Austria in 2011. In the short term, the increased labour supply simultaneously raised employment and higher unemployment. While firms were able to fill vacancies more quickly (and at lower wages at least in the short term), jobseekers found it harder to find a job. In the short term, the shock led to marked crowding-out effects: between 40 and 80 percent of the increase in unemployment in the years after 2011 were due to the opening of the labour market. In the medium and long term, however, the picture is different: lower labour costs and a more diverse labour supply mean that firms are offering more jobs and real GDP as well as employment are rising. According to Stefan Schiman's findings, in the end not only more foreigners but also more Austrian nationals are employed than before. The initial additional unemployment will also be reduced in the long term; in addition to the good economic situation, this is one of the reasons for the current decline in unemployment.
The fact that these are highly topical issues was also highlighted by the fact that two further presentations were devoted to them: Michael Christl from the European Commission addressed the development of the Beveridge curve in Austria. Andrea Weber, professor at the Central University Budapest and consultant at WIFO, presented microdata on the migration effects of the opening of the East.
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