Austria is a country that has a long tradition with immigration. Although most of the approximately eight million inhabitants are German speaking, most people are proficient in English. Moreover, Austria has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the European Union and due its prospering economy, there are plenty of business and employment opportunities.
If you are considering starting a business and would like to employ workers, then it’s good to know of the basics of the local labour law regulations. In September, our sister company Capital GES published an overview about the most important aspects regarding employing a worker in Austria. However, hiring out an employee to a client, especially when you are a foreign company brings a lot more challenges and red tape.
Labour Leasing in Austria
Leased workers are employed with a labour leasing company, but perform their work for the employer’s clients for a certain period of time. The workers are integrated into the client’s company. While being at work, the client gives the work instructions and evaluates the performance, while the labour leasing company takes care of all the employer obligations such as contracts, Payroll and tax and social security contributions.
Labour Leasing Permit
Labour leasing is a regulated trade in Austria and subject to the special labour law regulations of the Labour Leasing Act. Thus, it requires an official permit.
In order to acquire such a permit, the Austrian Chamber of Commerce requires a qualification exam for labour leasing. The exam consists of four challenging modules, all of them in German: a practical technical exam, a subject-specific oral exam (both require extensive legal knowledge about Austrian labour laws and labour leasing laws, including various sector specific collective labour agreements), a trainer exam and an entrepreneurial audit. The costs for all exams are in total approximately 1,000.00 Euros.
The trainer exam covers topics such as defining training objectives based on the job profile, in-company training, preparation, implementation and monitoring of training and behaviour of the trainer towards the apprentice.
The entrepreneurial audit is among others about identifying a client’s need and professional recruiting, contracting, liabilities, client services, payroll for the to be hired out employees and finding other job opportunities for them after the end of an assignment. Most of all though, this exam is all about organizing and leading a company and having the technical and practical knowledge about labour leasing in Austria.
Overall, it’s fairly easy to set-up a company in Austria in general and labour leasing is an attractive business model with a high demand, especially when the recruitment is extended to international experts to meet the clients’ demands. However, it takes a great deal of extensive knowledge about local laws and regulations and a very good command of the German language, when taking the exam.
TCP/People2.0 is currently in the process of acquiring the permit and will soon be able to take care of all the regulations and paperwork, while you as agency can continue to focus on your core competencies, excellent recruiting for your clients.
How TCP/People2.0 can help?
TCP Solutions is part of the People2.0 group of companies, who is the leading provider of contingent workforce engagement solutions within the EMEA, U.S. and globally.
Would you like further information about how we could assist you and your company regarding working with temporary workers and contractors compliantly following local tax rulings, then please contact us via info@emea.people20.com or send us a message via our contact page. We would be delighted to speak to you regarding the possibilities.
