The tragedy of ATX
ATX is now currently 75% at the level of 2007 peek, before financial crisis 2008 (Lehman brothers bankruptcy and subprime mortage crisis).
After the Golden Millennium 2000 until 2007 there was streight growth,
were all big companies had full order books and were hired a lot!
Since of that growth after the golden millennium in Austria, many of my friends, acquaintances or ex-colleagues had good jobs at industry sector.
Later they were sometimes labeled as too unqualified, while they had a lot of working expirience in tech sector at big tech companies.
I can explain, why they were getting so easy jobs at the era of golden millennium:
All tech companies in Austria growed a lot during this era, had a full order situation and a lot of different projects for many different customers in queue,
Many experts within the tech companies were overworked and came no longer came to work on the projects and issues, where their expert know-how was absolutely necessary and also brought the necessary innovation and added share holder value.
So the tech companies hired people to do the less productive, but currently constantly needed business and administrative work, often the exchanges with smaller partners or customers.
After the financial crisis in 2008, almost all large Austrian stock market companies never came up at the level of golden millenium era again. They had only a few new orders and no more the budget for bigger innovations without great US or Chinese tech partners oversea. Their cash flow came from old contracts and day-to-day business.
There was never again such a good growth phase as during the times of the golden millennium and the companies were only looking for highly qualified experts on an individual basis, but did not have to hire anyone due to too many orders and constant growth.
Misunderstandings arose because many people now noticed mistakes made by some of my friends and me, that I was never actually at the level of a top MIT or university of Berkeley california graduate or as good as tom@ibm.com or mike@google.com former at rainbow.
When I look at the case studies from the operating system exercise from 1995 and compare my work with that of Tom and Mike, it was clear for me and everyone else, that I (and many other people don't get at the unix OS Olymp) but at least I created some ghosts on walls. I don't envy Tom & Mike their talent or their hard work, but to say after 2 crises and 1 divorce, that I now have to reach Tom or Mike's level is very ridiculous of some people.
At least, improving advanced encryption standard with simple matrices and my currently project as one man company were very fine for the moment, and nobody needs everywhere the greatest top MIT experts for some less sophisticated implementations.
The tradegy is, that some good friend extra upskilled them selfs very well, with a US university Master degree and so on, but still don't have a permanent job and work only as projects freelancers from job to job!
Countermeasures against further stagnation
From 2000 to 2007, Wolfgang Schüssel's first and second governments introduced a number of measures that made it easier for Austrian companies to perform better business:
- Losses made by subsidiaries and foreign investments by companies could be fully written off from tax.
- The restructuring of the pension system and the investment of pensions in stocks promoted the boom of the stock market.
- Several myths existed, Karl Heinz Grasser was able to persuade a Swiss and an American major investor to invest heavily in the ATX. (look at the Target-2 balances, after July 2007, then you might see, what kind of foreign investors and what kind of Austrian investors never catched a falling knife after Lehmann Bro's and subprime marekt crisis trouble.=> Think, when it's about financial debts obligations, who would sell ATX real companies stocks? Banks, to get more liquidity? Find it out!)
We need such countermeasurements yet again (big fat tax cuts for companies) and better up-qualification program for less qualified co-workers.
Companies must receive a training voucher for their employees and taxes on labor and non-wage labor costs, as well as taxes on energy for industry, must be drastically reduced.
We need more big fat tax cuts for companies that employ many people.
My small company does not pay that much taxes, but tax cuts for one man / one woman companies don't make really so much sense; tax relief for corporations is urgently needed.
In an era of growth, people get easier into jobs and usually stay there
When I look at Alibaba, I can see, that a lot of chinese women in Hongkong and some new comer chinese manufactorers got easy into business. They are not yet fully professional in all aspects of their business, but with the necessary growth and sufficient constant demand, small initial mistakes don't hardly matter and they are becoming more and more professional.
