Economic Report Vienna

The recovery of the Viennese economy from the COVID-19 crisis was extremely strong in 2021, despite renewed pandemic-related restrictions on business activity in spring and at the end of the year. Structural advantages from the recovery of international services trade and from rebound effects in consumption-oriented tertiary sectors allowed for growth of +5.3 percent in real terms, which meant a growth advantage of 0.9 percentage points over Austria despite negative base effects. As a result, employment in Vienna also expanded at a much faster rate of +3.2 percent than in Austria (+2.5 percent), and the unemployment rate fell by 2.4 percentage points to 12.7 percent. In 2022, the growth path of the Viennese economy is expected to flatten to +3.7 percent (Austria +4.0 percent) due to the consequences of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine. An employment increase of still +2.0 percent could nevertheless be sufficient to bring Vienna's unemployment rate down to 11.3 percent and thus below the pre-crisis level.