Innsbruck – While the construction ancillary trades got away with a black eye in the previous year, the politically imposed corona restrictions and lockdowns hit professions such as hairdressers or event technicians hard. Correspondingly, the balance in Tyrolean trade and crafts is mixed. In the final quarter of 2020, for example, jobs related to people had to swallow a minus of more than 21 percent, while jobs related to construction came out with a minus of 5.8 percent, reported Franz Jirka, Tyrolean spokesman for the division, which comprises a total of 22,000 companies with 65,000 employees and 5,400 apprentices.

But all professional groups have one thing in common: “With the extension of the hard lockdown we are running out of breath,” Jirka warned the turquoise-green federal government of the consequences for many companies and families. “You won’t be able to go on like this, you have to come to an end. Politicians have to initiate countermeasures early on, ”said Jirka.

“There are no orders”

The order situation is different. 4 percent of the companies have no cushion and can process new orders immediately. At 26 percent, the order books are full for one to four weeks, at 50 percent for the next five to nine weeks, the rest can get through with the orders over the next 10 to 20 weeks. “That means that many companies will run out of work in 20 weeks at the latest,” warns Jirka: “There are no follow-up orders. Often only repairs have to be done, but the really large, long-term orders are missing due to the critical economic situation.

According to a study by KMU-Forschung Austria, 46 percent of commercial and craft enterprises are currently still satisfied or very satisfied with the economic situation. At the other end of the scale, 37 percent are little or not at all satisfied. This applies above all to fashion stores, podiatrists, masseurs, hairdressers or the film and music industry. Women are more affected than men. In almost a third of the companies, sales fell by 50 percent or more because of the corona measures.

Help has to flow faster

The prospects for 2021 are also broad. Around a third of the Tyrolean companies are positive, negative or neutral. 77 percent said they would be able to survive the crisis without government aid.

Jirka calls for aid requests to be handled unbureaucratically. A noticeable portion of the aid money flows directly on to tax advisors, for example, whose help is often needed for the applications. Aid would also have to flow faster: with fixed cost subsidies, you wait one to two months. Jirka considers the tightening of the NoVA to be “absurd”, and he also calls for the craftsman bonus from April at the latest. “There has to be an end to fooling around.” (mas)