Trade and Retail in Vienna's Employment System. Labour Market Relevance, Job Characteristics, Foreseeable Challenges

On the basis of diverse and partly new data sets, the study analyses the development of trade in Vienna, in particular retail trade, and its function in the regional employment system. The results show Vienna's retail trade as an economic sector that has been and is still subject to considerable structural change in supply and demand conditions due to technological changes and the transition to "modern" retail technologies, but also due to special features of the Vienna conurbation. As a result, it developed weaker in the medium and long term than the retail trade in Austria as a whole and thus played only a minor role as a driver of employment growth in the city economy. On the supply side, the determining factors are structural change towards (more productive) chain enterprises and modern product formats, the effects of competition between cities and the surrounding countryside, and the increase in online trade. A weak regional income development is added on the demand side. These factors also influence the prevailing labour relations, job characteristics and recruitment mechanisms in Vienna's retail trade as well as its function as employer and training provider in the dual system. In the medium term, the dynamic expansion of online trade should further intensify these already virulent transformation processes. Considerations on the economic policy accompaniment of this structural change therefore conclude the analysis.