Economic Report Vienna

The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken to contain it led the Vienna city economy into a severe recession: in the first half of 2020, real gross value added slumped by 6.9 percent. For 2020 as a whole, regional economic output is expected to have fallen by 6.2 percent compared with 2019, thanks to rebound effects in the summer and despite renewed restrictions at the end of the year. The decline in Vienna is thus noticeably lower than in Austria as a whole (–6.7 percent), but this is due not least to special effects and is hardly reflected in the employment trend. The unemployment rate will therefore reach a new high in Vienna in 2020. For 2021, WIFO expects a recovery also for Vienna, which, however, is likely to be weak due to the new lockdown in the first quarter: Regional value added is expected to increase by slightly more than 2 percent in 2021 – starting from the low level of the previous year; however, this growth will not be sufficient to make up for the economic losses and the decline in employment in 2020.