Austria is currently in a good economic position, but medium-sized businesses have too few employees to exploit the full potential. The figures speak for themselves: 79% of Austria’s companies have problems in finding employees and 56% have to accept sales losses because of a shortage of skilled labor. These figures were published by the consultancy company EY in its study "Fachkräftemangel im österreichischen Mittelstand" ("Shortage of skilled labor in Austria’s medium-sized companies"), for which 900 companies with between 30 and 2,000 employees were surveyed.

Most of the jobs remain unfilled in the areas of technology and production, according to the survey, with transport, construction and industrial companies facing the largest difficulties. The shortage of skilled employees is evident in over 80% of the companies surveyed in these areas. But Austria is certainly not the only country battling with this problem. According to the study "The Talent Crunch" by the international consultancy company Korn Ferry, companies worldwide will lose out on over 8 billion US dollars of turnover by 2030 because of a lack of skilled employees and workers.