Medium-term Employment Forecast for Austria's Eastern Region. Occupational and Sectoral Changes in 2006–2012

Over the last decades, Austria's eastern region experienced a more rapid pace of structural change than the country as such. Employment growth is fuelled by the services sectors, especially business services, database and data processing services, and the health care and social services. Employment declined primarily in manufacturing and the telecommunications sectors. The growing focus on services is reflected in the demand for occupations: the structural change mostly affects occupational groups that are typically anchored in manufacturing, while jobs in the services sector are growing. This applies specifically to jobs that involve direct customer contacts, such as in the health care sector, whereas typical office jobs without customer contacts (such as secretarial jobs) are declining. There is a marked trend towards higher-skilled jobs. Nevertheless the number of unskilled jobs is not expected to plunge, due to a rise in such jobs in the services sector; women in particular, including those with lower job skills, profit from the strong growth of this sector.