Retired earlier: Nursing staff celebrate recognition as hard workers!

Retired earlier: Nursing staff celebrate recognition as hard workers!

The Austrian federal government is planning a fundamental reform to improve working conditions in the nursing sector. One important measure envisages the recognition of nursing professions as hard work, which could enable employees to retire earlier, possibly from the age of 60. This decision is expected to be implemented before the summer of 2025, as 5min.at reported.

The coalition parties ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS have made a clear declaration of intent in the government program. Ingrid Korosec, President of the Austrian Senior Citizens' Association, supports this initiative and sees the recognition of nursing professions as an important step towards respect and appreciation for the work of nursing staff.

Details on the heavy work regulations

The requirements for a heavy work pension include reaching the age of 60, at least 120 months of hard work within the last 240 months before retirement and a total of 540 months of insurance. Further conditions are the absence of compulsory pension insurance and an income that does not exceed the marginal income limit. In addition, no agricultural or forestry operations may exist with a unit value of more than 2,400 euros, and public mandates may total a maximum of 5,550.92 euros per month.

The initiative to recognize nursing professions as hard work comes as no surprise. Trade unions such as the GÖD health union and younion – Team Health have been pointing out this problem for a long time. According to the working climate index, 60% of employees in the nursing sector feel very stressed, which indicates the challenges in their everyday work. The pressure caused by a lack of staff, shift work and psychological stress is enormous. New time highlights that only 38% of those under 40 and 44% of those over 40 believe they will last until retirement.

A step in the right direction

The planned reform is seen as an important step towards improving working conditions in the healthcare sector. In November 2023, the Carinthian state parliament unanimously supported a motion that calls for hard working times to be calculated on an hourly basis. This affects more than 150,000 people in the medical and technical service. With an additional 70,000 nurses needed by 2050, it is crucial to make the profession more attractive.

The current regulations in the pension system put the nursing professions at a disadvantage because the pension insurance decides individually whether the hard working hours are taken into account. Trade unions have therefore called for recognition to be extended to all healthcare professions, which could bring much-needed change. Many care workers under the age of 35 have already stated that they no longer want to work in their current job. The legal recognition of nursing professions as hard work could therefore provide a decisive impetus to improve the personnel situation in the nursing sector and to appropriately recognize the valuable work of nursing staff.