2010-09-06 YURA_SWOT- PP4 - EU-Regionalmanagement ...

9 Identification of threats and risks
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How to deal with the expected further population decrease and ageing?
What kind of (objective) consequences brings demographic change with it?
o Because of the declining birth rates schools are in danger of closing down or merging. As a
result, a strong competition about the number of attending pupils between the schools
started.
o Migration, lower birth rates and the economic crisis the economic cause a changing of economic
sectors and many industry enterprises are closing down, the unemployment rate increases.
As an outcome there is a loss of infrastructure in many ways such as no renovation
of streets, migration of restaurants and other service providers, etc.
o Because of the aging of the population many employees in the health sector are missing,
and the other application areas are changing, too. Primary industry is declining, in the
meantime the employment market dislocates to the tertiary sector.
o The chamber of commerce has published a study which predicts that in 2016 27% of young
people are missing in Styria, this leads to a great loss of applicants for an apprenticeship or
higher education and this leads further to a great loss of skilled workers. One model to antagonize
this trend is the extension of working time for everyone. In this case a new application
areas and benefit models have to be worked out for them, who are working until
they are 70 or older.
o A directed recruitment of skilled workers will be needed in the next years.
o South-West-Styria is an agricultural coined Region and there is the common problem of the
continuation of farms. The demographic change may lead to another problem, many small
and medium enterprises (SME´s) can not find a person to continue their enterprises and
they get lost for the region, too.