Lower Austria industry chief calls for fewer public holidays

The president of the Federation of Austrian Industries in Lower Austria, Kari Ochsner, has proposed cutting public holidays or increasing the working week to improve companies’ competitiveness. The proposal drew sharp criticism from the Freedom Party and the trade union GPA, ORF reports.

Austria is an export nation, Ochsner told the Kronen Zeitung on Saturday, but companies must be able to produce competitively to succeed on international markets. He said Austria ranked “very far behind” internationally in terms of annual working days.

Ochsner described this as a clear competitive disadvantage and called for a reduction in public holidays. “If we had a 41-hour week, most people would not even notice,” he said. “We could also simply get rid of one or two public holidays.” Austria has 13 statutory public holidays, placing it among the countries with the highest number. Ochsner also said he considered a 25 euro hospital co-payment reasonable.

The GPA criticised the proposal. “Competitiveness does not come from more hours on paper, but from investment, innovation and higher productivity,” GPA chairwoman Teiber said in a statement. She added that, according to parts of industry, economic policy appeared to consist mainly of cutting back on employees.

Dagmar Belakowitsch, the Freedom Party’s spokeswoman for social affairs, accused the Austrian People’s Party of a “coordinated game” in which it was sending out “helpers” to push through the complete dismantling of social protections. International competitiveness must not be achieved at the expense of employees, she said. The country instead needed motivated workers who again had a genuine chance to build something of their own through their work.