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Austria Foreign Workers
Foreign workers represent the largest de facto minority in
Austria, although they frequently are not perceived as such
because they are "foreigners" and "guest workers." Their cultural
and linguistic characteristics set them off from the indigenous
population, however, and make them a distinct minority. Present
in substantial numbers since the 1960s, foreign workers have
become a permanent feature of Austrian society.
Initially, many guest workers came to Austria without their
families and eventually returned to their countries of origin
after having saved some money. In this respect, they were similar
to "seasonal" laborers. However, the "rotation" of foreign
workers--the return of some to their countries of origin offset
by the influx of others to take their jobs--was gradually
replaced by the permanent settlement of foreign workers and their
families.
Foreign workers who had the required residence visa and work
permit were entitled to reside permanently in Austria; their
documents were generally renewed. In addition, once foreigners
had worked and lived continuously in the country for ten years,
they could apply for Austrian citizenship. (Under other
conditions, such as political asylum, the waiting period for
application could be reduced to four years.) Between 1970 and
1990, over 133,000 foreigners became naturalized Austrian
citizens, the majority of whom were long-term foreign workers.
The Employment of Foreigners Law passed in 1991 limited the
number of foreign workers who could be employed in Austria to 10
percent of the domestic labor force. The Resident Alien Law of
1993 reduced the number of foreign workers, that is, workers from
outside the EU and the European Free Trade Association
(EFTA--see Glossary)
still further--to 9 percent of the total work force of
about 3.5 million. As a result of these laws, approximately
300,000 foreigners can work in Austria. Because many of these
workers have dependents, Austrian officials assume foreigners
could come to constitute approximately 10 percent of the total
population.
Citizens from the former Yugoslavia, predominantly Serbs,
accounted for approximately 50 percent of the foreign workers in
Austria. Turks were the second largest group, making up
approximately 20 percent of the foreign work force, followed by
Germans at 5 percent. Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, and
Romanians made up between 3.5 and 4.0 percent each.
Foreigners usually live in urban and industrial centers, most
notably Vienna. Although foreigners accounted for just over 6
percent of the total population in 1990, the foreign population
of Vienna increased from 7.4 percent in 1981 to 13.2 percent in
1990. Because of the large number of foreigners living in the
capital and the low birth rates of indigenous Austrians, at the
beginning of the 1990s one-fourth of the children born in Vienna
were foreigners.
Despite their essential contribution to the economy and the
fact that they are more law-abiding than the indigenous
population, foreign workers are generally not held in high
esteem. This prejudice is caused by the low pay and social status
of their jobs, their lower level of education, and an often
limited ability to speak German. Tensions also arise because of
their foreign appearance and customs. Some resentment also stems
from the social costs their presence entails. For example, the
children of these workers are an additional burden for schools,
and there are concerns about how well these children are being
educated. Determining the national identities of these children
is often difficult because they are not familiar with their
parents' homeland yet have the status of "foreigners" in Austria.
The degree or quality of assimilation into the larger society
is the most serious problem presented by long-term foreign
workers. It is not known whether they will remain a minority or
gradually come to be seen as Austrian. Generally speaking,
workers from the former Yugoslavia show a greater facility for
integration or willingness to assimilate--especially in the
second generation--than Turks, whose Islamic beliefs tend to make
integration more difficult.
Although the arrival of these foreign workers has promoted
the upward mobility of Austria's indigenous lower classes by
filling the jobs having the lowest pay and social prestige, a new
ethnic lower class has been created. The future social mobility
and integration of foreign workers will determine to what extent
Austria will have an "imported" racial problem in the future.
Data as of December 1993
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