Liberalisation (EU-8) of the Austrian labour market for the Austrian regions starting 1 May 2011

On 1 May 2004 the European Union was joined by 10 new member states. The accession treaties for the eight new member states from Central and Eastern Europe (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary – EU-8 member states) contained transitional arrangements concerning the free movement of workers. These transitional arrangements ended on 1 May 2011. The workers from these EU-8 member states have now acquired the right of free movement, which allows them to access any kind of employment and work with the same conditions as Austrian citizens. Within the first few months of this liberalisation, these modifications of the framework conditions for access to the Austrian labour market resulted in measurable increases in immigration and employment of workers.

The study, commissioned by the Public Employment Service Austria, aimed to identify to what extent the free movement of workers from the EU-8 member states has changed the recruitment behaviour of Austrian enterprises and what role workers from the EU-8 member states assume in the recruitment processes of Austrian employing enterprises. In this respect it is of interest to find out what means are used by Austrian enterprises for the recruitment of workers from the EU-8 member states, which groups of workers are recruited and what are the requirements established for them – and if any changes can be observed in this respect based on the labour market liberalisation. For this purpose a representative survey was conducted with enterprises that are clients of the Public Employment Service Austria. In addition, experiences, evaluations and future expectations of labour market experts in the EU-8 member states were obtained.