From the indoor barista to the job shop: How companies are…

In the current decade, hundreds of thousands of workers are retiring. At the same time, it is not easy for many companies to fill vacancies. Creative ideas are needed.

Two young ÖBB employees are sitting in their office next to the travel center at Vienna-Mitte train station at 7:30 am on Thursday, waiting for customers. Office name: “ÖBB Job Shop”. What is being offered is not train tickets, but jobs. This is where most of the open jobs in the railway organization will be available to potential employees.

Opened in May this year, around 800 people of all ages have applied directly to the office through the low-level pathway. The railway is looking for employees in 131 professions that ÖBB has – around 3,400 people every year. A fifth of the roughly 45,000 rail workers will retire this decade. “We cannot do enough to fill all the vacancies,” corporate human resources manager Martina Hacker told “Presse am Sonntag”. At ÖBB, around 100 people are already recruiting new employees.

The struggle for workers has long spread across all sectors, be it industry, trade, gastronomy, administration or health care – workers are needed everywhere.

Generational change