Background information

In order to enable stable communication between the remote workplaces and the company premises and thereby maintain the ability to work the Vienna business agency (Wirtschaftsagentur) provided the funding programme to support SMEs in Vienna.

In 2017, a total number of 126,366 enterprises were registered in Vienna. As Austria has a SME quote of 99.6% , most of them are SMEs. Considering this scale, the 700 applications in the first week are not a significantly large number (around 0.55%).

Content of measure

Launched in March 2020, as part of the regional COVID-19 policy response, the funding programme supports Viennese SMEs to set up teleworking for their staff and to create stable communication between the remote workplaces and the company premises. The window for applications was scheduled from 1 March until 2 April 2020. As stated in an update on 6 April the budget has been depleted.

The support includes:

• consulting services provided by third parties;

• investments for IT facilities.

The subsidy covers 75% of the arising costs, up to €10,000 per project.

Funded by the regional/local government support is provided in collaboration with the Viennese Economic Chamber (WKW) and by the Vienna business agency (Wirtschaftsagentur).

Use of measure

In the first week of funding, 700 applications were received. The initially envisaged budget of €2 million has been exhausted and topped up to a total of €6 million. The city reported a very high demand from companies. The participating enterprises on average invested €8,125 in new IT facilities for home office.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Employees in standard employment	SMEs	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
Other social actors (e.g. NGOs) Local / regional government	Regional funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

Unknown

Views and reactions

Unknown

Sources

• 31 December 2017: WKO, Wirtschaftskraft KMU (news.wko.at)
• 20 March 2020: LBG, Wirtschaftsagentur Wien – Förderung von IT-Infrastruktur zum Aufbau von Telearbeitsplätze (www.lbg.at)
• 07 October 2022: Vienna triples home office subsidy to €6 million (www.wien.gv.at)
• 07 October 2022: Home office funding in Vienna in extremely high demand (www.wien.gv.at)