Lagged Upturn in Western Regions. Economic Developments in the Austrian Federal States in 1994

In 1994, the Austrian economy recovered from recession; real GDP in the non-agricultural sector expanded by 2.7 percent. Within the general pattern of the upswing, regional disparities of the business cycle became more marked. Between the leaders of growth in the East, the Burgenland and Lower Austria, on the one hand, and the Tyrol with the slowest growth, on the other, the gap was almost 5 percentage points. Within each of the three large Austrian regions, developments were rather uneven reflecting different trends in mainly domestically-oriented sectors like construction, trade and business services. In the East, the upturn lagged behind in the Vienna region; in the West, the economies of Upper Austria and Vorarlberg performed above the national average. Manufacturing industry in the eastern region benefited from progress in the transformation process of East-Central European countries. In western Austria, demand from Germany provided rather less stimulus than in previous recoveries. The slowly expanding Vorarlberg industry has still to overcome problems of structural adjustment related to the apparel sector. The construction sector exhibited large regional disparities, with output rising strongly in Vorarlberg, Salzburg, Carinthia and Burgenland, while falling in other regions, notably in the Tyrol, Upper Austria and Vienna. The crisis in the tourism industry hit particularly the areas highly specializing in tourism services, such as Carinthia and the western states of Tyrol, Salzburg and Vorarlberg. City tourism fared clearly better, so that overnight stays in Vienna rose by over 5 percent. The Austrian labor market reacted only with a lag to the business cycle recovery. Employment in the Burgenland, in Lower Austria and Salzburg increased by more than 1 percent, while it stagnated in Vorarlberg, Styria and Vienna. Unemployment fell most markedly in Salzburg and Upper Austria, while in the Tyrol it continued rising somewhat. The level of unemployment is, by tradition, higher in the East than in the western regions. In 1994, Styria and Carinthia registered the highest unemployment rates of 8.1 percent, respectively; Burgenland (7.7 percent) and Vienna (7.1 percent) were also above the national average; the lowest unemployment rate held Salzburg with 4.0 percent.