Background information

Unemployment in Austria has risen sharply due to the COVID-19 crisis. In order to support unemployed persons, the federal government initiated a so-called education bonus, in order to motivate unemployed persons to take up further training or retraining.

Initially, this bonus was designed as an accompanying measure to a "work foundation" or reemployment scheme which was announced in July 2020; however, this work foundation never materialised and instead, a "COVID-19 job offensive" was presented in December 2020, by which (further) training measures in the focal areas digitisation, metal, nursing and social care and environment and sustainability for 100,000 unemployed should be financed with a special budget of €700 million (which equates the budget cuts for the Public Employment Service of the previous two years).

Content of measure

The education bonus is provided for taking part in a training measure which lasts at least four months and is agreed upon with the PES. It lies at €4 per day (i.e. cumulating to around €120 per month) and is provided for training measures which start from 1 October 2020 to 31 December 2021. The bonus is provided in addition to the unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance and the pre-existing training allowance (which lies at around €60 per month). It is supposed to partially compensate for any additional training-related expenses which arise. It is not paid if the training provider pays a grant to the student. The bonus does not need to be specifically applied for, it is paid automatically together with the unemployment benefit or assistance. In total, €58 million are budgeted until 2022. The funding agency is the Federal Ministry of Labour, Family and Youth.

Use of measure

As of early December 2021, around 36,100 persons have used the COVID-19 education bonus.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Unemployed	Does not apply to businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government Public employment service	National 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: Peak or cross-sectoral level

Involvement

The PES' administrative board consists also of social partner representatives, thus, it can be assumed that they were involved in the design of the measure, even though no specific information on their involvement could be identified.

Views and reactions

No information available.

Sources

• 10 September 2020: Education bonus and more money for families (orf.at)
• 01 October 2020: COVID-19 education bonus (transparenzportal.gv.at)
• 02 December 2021: Education bonus extended (www.ots.at)
• 25 January 2023: Social Committee decides to extend the education bonus until the end of 2023 (www.ots.at)