How much did Austrian manufacturing labour cost rise?

From EUR 46.2 per hour in 2023 to EUR 49.3 in 2024 and EUR 51.3 in 2025, an increase of 11.0% in two years against 9.0% for the EU-27 and 6.7% for Germany. Source: Eurostat lc_lci_lev, D1_D4_MD5, NACE C.

How large is Austrian manufacturing?

EUR 78,487.8 million of gross value added in 2025 at current prices, 17.1% of the Austrian total, with 673,910 persons employed and 32,369 manufacturing enterprises of all sizes in 2023. Sources: Eurostat nama_10_a10, nama_10_a10_e, sbs_ovw_act.

What is the largest manufacturing sub-sector in Austria?

Machinery n.e.c. (NACE C28), EUR 11,328 million of gross value added in 2023, 14.9% of Austrian manufacturing, ahead of food, beverages and tobacco and fabricated metal. Source: Eurostat nama_10_a64, 2023.

What does an Austrian plant pay for electricity?

EUR 0.2159/kWh in the second half of 2025 in band ID (2,000 to 19,999 MWh per year), excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes, against EUR 0.1920/kWh for the EU-27. Source: Eurostat nrg_pc_205, 2025-S2.

Is there a labour shortage in Austrian manufacturing?

The two official series disagree. The vacancy rate is high by EU standards but falling (3.1% in 2024, 2.8% in 2025, 2.4% in 2025-Q4), while the share of manufacturers naming labour as a limit on production rose from 6.5% to 11.6% between 2026-Q2 and 2026-Q3.

Home / Western European manufacturing in 2026: the data

Country data · Austria · Eurostat, extracted 22 September 2026

Austria: manufacturing output, jobs, productivity and costs in 2026

Austrian manufacturing added 5.0% in value and lost 2.1% of its people in the same year, while an hour of work got 11% more expensive in two.

In shortAustrian manufacturing produced EUR 78.5 billion of gross value added in 2025 (Eurostat nama_10_a10), 17.1% of the economy, with 673,900 people employed. Hourly labour cost reached EUR 51.3 in 2025, up 11.0% since 2023, among the fastest rises in Western Europe. Machinery is the largest sub-sector and 32.5% of manufacturers report using AI.

Data basisEvery figure here was read from Eurostat and extracted on 22 September 2026, with the dataset code given so each cell can be re-checked. Nothing is estimated or carried over from another year. n/r means Eurostat publishes no value, and the reason is given.

Austria against the EU-27 average
Indicator	Austria	EU-27	Year	Dataset
Manufacturing gross value added	EUR 78,487.8 m	EUR 2,668,790.0 m	2025	nama_10_a10
Share of total gross value added	17.1%	15.8%	2025	nama_10_a10
Persons employed in manufacturing	673,910	29,901,580	2025	nama_10_a10_e
Value added per person employed	EUR 116.5k	EUR 89.3k	2025	derived
Manufacturing enterprises, all sizes	32,369	2,168,163	2023	sbs_ovw_act
Hourly labour cost	EUR 51.3	EUR 35.0	2025	lc_lci_lev
Electricity, band ID	EUR 0.2159/kWh	EUR 0.1920/kWh	2025-S2	nrg_pc_205
Manufacturers using at least one AI technology	32.5%	17.3%	2025	isoc_eb_ain2

Source: Eurostat, datasets as listed, extracted 22 September 2026.

Output and trend

Manufacturing gross value added rose from EUR 74,774.0 million in 2024 to EUR 78,487.8 million in 2025, +5.0% in current prices (nama_10_a10). Only Denmark (+8.3%) and the Netherlands (+5.1%) grew faster in this group; the EU-27 rose 2.0%. Part of that is price rather than volume, since the series is not deflated.

Manufacturing is 17.1% of total Austrian gross value added, above the EU-27 figure of 15.8% and behind only Denmark and Germany here. Austria is an industrial economy tied to the German supply chain.

Employment

Employment fell from 688,520 in 2024 to 673,910 in 2025, about 14,600 jobs, 2.1% (nama_10_a10_e), against an EU-27 fall of 0.7%. Only Belgium fell faster. Fewer people are running the same plants, in the country with the second most expensive manufacturing hour in this group.

Value added per person employed

EUR 116.5 thousand per person employed in 2025 against EUR 89.3 thousand for the EU-27, 1.30 times the EU level: fifth in this group, behind Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, just ahead of Finland (EUR 116.4k) and Germany (EUR 109.8k). For the whole economy, tesem160 puts Austria at 115.9 against EU-27 = 100 in 2025, down from 117.3 in 2024.

How this number is builtValue added per person employed = manufacturing gross value added (nama_10_a10, B1G, CP_MEUR, NACE C) divided by persons employed in manufacturing (nama_10_a10_e, EMP_DC, THS_PER, NACE C). Nominal, current prices, not adjusted for purchasing power and not deflated. Derived here, not published by Eurostat.

Unlike Denmark and Belgium, the Austrian figure is not inflated by one dominant high-value sub-sector, which makes it one of the more honest productivity numbers in this set.

The three largest sub-sectors

Austria, top five manufacturing sub-sectors by gross value added, 2023
Rank	Sub-sector (NACE)	Value added 2023	Share
1	Machinery n.e.c. (C28)	EUR 11,328 m	14.9%
2	Food, beverages, tobacco (C10 to C12)	EUR 9,071 m	11.9%
3	Fabricated metal (C25)	EUR 7,350 m	9.6%
4	Electrical equipment (C27)	EUR 6,058 m	8.0%
5	Wood, paper, printing (C16 to C18)	EUR 5,929 m	7.8%

Source: Eurostat nama_10_a64, B1G, CP_MEUR, 2023. Shares against the Austrian NACE C total for 2023 (EUR 76,174 m). Computer, electronic and optical products (EUR 5,534 m) and basic metals (EUR 5,199 m) follow closely.

Machinery n.e.c. leads, as it does in Italy, the Netherlands and Finland. With fabricated metal and electrical equipment the profile is discrete, high-mix, low-volume: many part numbers, many setups, short runs. In that work the dominant recorded loss is changeover, the dominant unrecorded loss is short stops below the reporting threshold, and neither appears in an ERP production confirmation.

Labour cost per hour: up 11.0% since 2023

Hourly labour cost in manufacturing, EUR
Year	Austria	EU-27	Germany	Sweden
2023	EUR 46.2	EUR 32.1	EUR 46.4	EUR 42.9
2024	EUR 49.3	EUR 33.8	EUR 48.5	EUR 44.5
2025	EUR 51.3	EUR 35.0	EUR 49.5	EUR 47.2
Change 2023 to 2025	+11.0%	+9.0%	+6.7%	+10.0%

Source: Eurostat lc_lci_lev, unit EUR, lcstruct D1_D4_MD5, NACE C, 2023 to 2025. Changes calculated from the rows above. Portugal rose fastest in this group at +13.0%.

An Austrian manufacturing hour cost EUR 51.3 in 2025, 1.47 times the EU-27 average and second only to Denmark (EUR 55.0). The more useful number is the change: +11.0% in two years, against +9.0% for the EU and +6.7% for Germany, Austria's main customer. Rising faster than the country you export to is the Austrian problem in one line.

Two countries missing from this comparisonThe Netherlands (2025 flagged confidential) and Belgium (no observation published) are n/r for 2025 in lc_lci_lev, so their changes cover 2023 to 2024 only and are not comparable with two-year figures.

Electricity: band ID

Electricity for industrial users, EUR/kWh, band ID (2,000 to 19,999 MWh per year), excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes
Period	Austria	EU-27	Germany	Finland
2025-S1	EUR 0.2164	EUR 0.1969	EUR 0.2378	EUR 0.0875
2025-S2	EUR 0.2159	EUR 0.1920	EUR 0.2369	EUR 0.0846
Change	-0.2%	-2.5%	-0.4%	-3.3%

Source: Eurostat nrg_pc_205, siec E7000, nrg_cons MWH2000-19999, tax I_TAX, currency EUR, unit KWH.

Austria pays EUR 0.2159/kWh in band ID, 12% above the EU-27 average, and the price barely moved between the two semesters. That is about 2.6 times the Finnish price. High power plus high labour means an idle but energised machine costs money twice.

Vacancies and labour shortage

Measure	Austria	EU-27	Dataset, period
Manufacturing job vacancy rate, annual	2.8% (3.1% in 2024)	1.5% (1.8%)	jvs_a_rate_r2, 2025
Manufacturing job vacancy rate, quarterly	2.6% then 2.4%	1.5% then 1.5%	jvs_q_nace2, 2025-Q3 and Q4
Manufacturers naming labour as a limit on production	6.5% then 11.6%	15.8% then 18.0%	ei_bsin_q_r2, 2026-Q2 and Q3

Sources: Eurostat jvs_a_rate_r2, jvs_q_nace2 (indicator JVR) and ei_bsin_q_r2 (indicator BS-FLP3-PC). The survey rows are 2026 quarters and are not on the same time base as the annual rate.

Austria has the second highest manufacturing vacancy rate in this group after the Netherlands, and it is falling quarter by quarter. The survey moves the other way: the share naming labour as a limit rose from 6.5% to 11.6%, the largest jump in this group, while staying below the EU-27 figure. The two series disagree, so neither is quoted here on its own.

AI and ICT adoption

Enterprises with 10 or more employees, percentage of enterprises
Enterprises using at least one AI technology	2024	2025
Austria, all sectors	20.3%	30.0%
Austria, manufacturing	22.7%	32.5%
EU-27, manufacturing	10.6%	17.3%

Source: Eurostat isoc_eb_ai (all sectors) and isoc_eb_ain2 (NACE C), indicator E_AI_TANY, GE10.

Survey breakEurostat broadened the AI question set for the 2025 wave, so part of every 2024 to 2025 jump is methodological rather than real adoption. Treat the two years as two measurements, not a growth rate.

At 32.5%, Austrian manufacturing is 1.9 times the EU-27 manufacturing rate and fourth in this set behind Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. Austria is one of only two countries here, with Belgium, where manufacturers report higher AI use than the national all-sector average. The Digital Intensity Index (isoc_e_dii) and robot density are n/r on this page: not retrieved in this pass, nothing substituted.

What this means for a plant in Austria

Re-price the stopped hour every year. Labour cost rose 11.0% in two years while your German customers' rose 6.7%. A case built on 2023 figures understates the loss by about a tenth.
High-mix means setup and short stops. Record changeover separately from breakdown, and capture the stops that are too short to report by hand.
Energy is a real second argument. EUR 0.2159/kWh is 2.6 times the Finnish price, so energy per part is worth measuring next to machine state.
Fewer people, same plant. 14,600 manufacturing jobs went in 2025, and the knowledge of why a line stops goes with them unless it is recorded at the machine.
Your peers are past the first question. With 32.5% reporting AI use, the differentiator is data that describes machine state minute by minute.

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Questions

How much did Austrian manufacturing labour cost rise?: From EUR 46.2 per hour in 2023 to EUR 49.3 in 2024 and EUR 51.3 in 2025, an increase of 11.0% in two years against 9.0% for the EU-27 and 6.7% for Germany. Source: Eurostat lc_lci_lev, D1_D4_MD5, NACE C.
How large is Austrian manufacturing?: EUR 78,487.8 million of gross value added in 2025 at current prices, 17.1% of the Austrian total, with 673,910 persons employed and 32,369 manufacturing enterprises of all sizes in 2023. Sources: Eurostat nama_10_a10, nama_10_a10_e, sbs_ovw_act.
What is the largest manufacturing sub-sector in Austria?: Machinery n.e.c. (NACE C28), EUR 11,328 million of gross value added in 2023, 14.9% of Austrian manufacturing, ahead of food, beverages and tobacco and fabricated metal. Source: Eurostat nama_10_a64, 2023.
What does an Austrian plant pay for electricity?: EUR 0.2159/kWh in the second half of 2025 in band ID (2,000 to 19,999 MWh per year), excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes, against EUR 0.1920/kWh for the EU-27. Source: Eurostat nrg_pc_205, 2025-S2.
Is there a labour shortage in Austrian manufacturing?: The two official series disagree. The vacancy rate is high by EU standards but falling (3.1% in 2024, 2.8% in 2025, 2.4% in 2025-Q4), while the share of manufacturers naming labour as a limit on production rose from 6.5% to 11.6% between 2026-Q2 and 2026-Q3.

Sources

Published by TEEPTRAK SAS, which makes production-monitoring and OEE software. Every figure is sourced on the page. Funding rules, standards and reporting duties change: check the official documents before you budget or commit.