Deindustrialisation in Vienna(?) On the Decreasing Importance of Manufacturing for Employment in Vienna: Scope, Causes, Mechanisms

In the medium term, manufacturing's importance for employment in Vienna is on a downward slope: Between 1995 and 2006, almost 42,000 jobs were lost to industry in Vienna, almost 30,000 more than would have been lost if the development had followed the Austrian average for all industrial sectors. The study makes a detailed analysis of the scope and causes for this deindustrialisation in Vienna, finding a multidimensional phenomenon driven by macroeconomic mechanisms as well as spatial and organisational factors and aspects of competitiveness. Labour-saving technical progress and demand factors fuelled by the high economic development level, the migration of industry from the core of the city, outsourcing of dispositional functions to separate services companies and a comparatively high input of materials and services purchased from abroad are the chief explanatory factors for plummeting employment in Vienna's industry. Added to this are residual competitive weaknesses the elimination of which through "modern" industry policies is at the centre of the paper's economic policy conclusions.