Education and the Labour Market – Austria's Young in an EU-wide Comparison

The interaction of factors on the supply and demand side of the labour market has changed the terms of reference for the young to be employed. In Austria, these changes were not accompanied by adequate adjustments of the institutional framework and behaviour patterns. In particular, a rigid education system greatly reduced the young's opportunities in the labour market. While workers were faced with the need to adjust to rapidly changing skills requirements in the wake of technological change, globalisation, specialised production and tertiarisation, the educational system, set in the ways of the past, failed to respond with the requisite promptness. To make matters worse, an increasing cultural diversity on the part of pupils and students posed a challenge to the educational system and, not least, the teachers, that the system has failed to cope with.