Tyrol chamber chief backs shorter summer holidays

Tyrol Economic Chamber President Barbara Thaler has backed shorter summer holidays, joining a proposal by Austrian Economic Chamber President Martha Schultz, ORF reported Thursday. Thaler also rejected criticism that reforms at the Tyrol chamber were progressing too slowly.

Speaking on the ORF programme Tirol heute, Thaler said many employees, businesses and entrepreneurs found it a major organisational challenge to arrange childcare for nine weeks every summer.

Thaler also pointed to a cost-cutting package that has already been approved. The chamber levy known as KU2 has been reduced, and the chamber is becoming more efficient and digital, she said. The reform is due to be completed in November. The levy reduction is expected to cut annual revenue by six million euros in the long term.

The Austrian Court of Audit recently criticised the Tyrol chamber for having overly large structures and high costs. Between 2019 and 2024, its personnel costs rose by 41 percent, the largest increase among Austria’s chambers. Thaler attributed the rise to additional spending at WIFI, the chamber’s economic promotion institute.

Thaler has led the Tyrol chamber for two and a half years. Her term has included intense disputes over personnel and criticism linked to planned pay increases for former Austrian chamber president Harald Mahrer and other officials.

Thaler withdrew a planned increase in her own compensation and was among the first to publicly call for Mahrer’s resignation. Mahrer stepped down and was succeeded by Schultz, who is also from Tyrol. Both Schultz and Thaler have announced reforms within their respective chambers.

Thaler described the increases in officials’ expense allowances as the wrong decision at the wrong time. The increases were withdrawn in Tyrol. She said the allowances were not salaries, adding that the workload involved in chamber positions clearly differed and that she did not want to do without the work of the chamber’s officials.