Vienna. The integration report continues to be criticized for its treatment of Turks who have been living in Austria for 60 years in the same category as other refugees who arrived illegally from Afghanistan, Syria and other countries only yesterday. The report states: “The labor market is one of the main drivers of integration, even if the different immigrant groups are represented differently depending on their origin and gender: a total of 74.1 percent of people aged 15-64 are employed in Austria. However, this rate is lower among Turkish citizens in the country at 61.4 percent, and among Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis at 44.4 percent. The extremely low employment rate of women among these latter – only 26.3 percent – pulls the average down sharply.”
Der Standard reported the news as follows:
Moreover, the coexistence of people born in Austria and immigrants was rated much worse by immigrants last year than in 2022, i.e. the previous year. In 2023, 23.2 percent of those born in Austria said their standard of living was very good or good, while 40.4 percent described it as bad or very bad. In 2022, 34.4 percent had a very good or good impression, and 25.1 percent had a bad or very bad impression.
Opportunities and challenges
These are the three key statements in the latest integration report, which is based on figures and data from the past year. The annual study was presented on Monday morning in Vienna by Integration Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP). Highly professional and detailed: Austrian Director General of Statistics Tobias Thomas and Chair of the Integration Expert Council Katharina Pabel painted a statistically proven picture of an immigration society with all its opportunities and problems.
Pabel stressed that immigrants were urgently needed in the increasingly weaker labor market due to the retirement of the boomers. Also for jobs that require lower qualifications and do not require perfect knowledge of German. However, this should not lead to “learning German taking a backseat”, according to the expert. Mastering the national language is a prerequisite for the best possible social integration.
Raab renews call for waiting period for benefits
Integration Minister Raab used the occasion to highlight a demand frequently voiced by the ÖVP: a five-year waiting period for immigrants to receive full social assistance, in line with the Danish model. During this time, people must keep their heads above water by working. The principle should be: “First pay into the system, then pay back.”
Many illiterate refugees
However, the proportion of refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq or Somalia who came to Austria as illiterate is increasing. By 2023, 65 percent of arrivals were required to be literate in the Latin alphabet. Another 23 percent were illiterate in their native language – a sign of “no educational opportunities in their country of origin”.
In contrast, displaced persons from Ukraine, for example, will have a harder time finding work due to their higher level of education compared to Afghan and Syrian nationals. They often need to learn good German to find jobs that match their qualifications. “The matching of job providers and job seekers needs to be improved here,” Pabel said. The issue of childcare is also key in this context: the majority of Ukrainian refugees in Austria are single mothers.
Raab also criticised the state of Vienna: The more generous social assistance rules in the capital (a person with subsidiary protection receives 730 euros more per month in Vienna than in other states) will encourage migration to the social assistance system. The minister called on Vienna to comply with the rules of the basic social assistance law nationwide. This law has been questioned by experts for years on the grounds that it promotes poverty.
According to Raab, integration only works “without excessive demands, because there are too many new arrivals in the country too soon”. That is why it is good news that asylum applications are down by 57 percent in 2023 compared to 2022. SPÖ Integration Spokesperson Christian Oxonitsch takes a different view. According to him, Raab presents “the same bad figures every year” and “makes the same demands every year, as if he were not the Integration Minister himself”.
Germans are the largest immigrant group
In total, there were 2.4 million people with an immigrant background living in Austria on 1 January 2024, corresponding to 19.7 per cent of the population: either born abroad themselves (1.8 million people) or descendants of that first generation (620,100 people). Immigrants from non-European countries represent relatively small communities in comparison. The largest group remains Germans with 232,700 people, followed by citizens of Romania (153,400), Turkey (124,100) and Serbia (122,200).
2024-07-09 09:54:50