Vienna (OTS) – The world of work is in upheaval, there is a shortage of employees in many sectors, but the calls for fewer working hours are getting louder. Today AMS boss Johannes Kopf was a guest on Ö3-“Frühstück bei mir” and explained: “I’m always asked where have the people gone? My answer is: ‘You work.’ We have 100,000 more employees than before the pandemic, but they don’t necessarily work where they’re looking for those who groan Mid-April 2020: “I had a burn-out”.
“During the great economic crisis in 2009, we had 600 applications for short-time work in the AMS. And then came 2020, the republic was closed in mid-March and the answer was: ‘Go to the AMS.’ Suddenly there were 120,000 applications. I worked with my colleagues day and night and due to my personality structure I felt personally responsible for each of these applicants. Then it blew me away,” said Johannes Kopf. The AMS board gave open insights into the situation at the time on Ö3: “Things happened that you can’t even imagine. This promotion was invented in a press conference on a Friday afternoon, we had no computerized process for it, no guidelines, there was no law yet. I remember watching the press conference on TV in my office. We couldn’t go online because our data lines were already so overloaded. Then the question was: ‘When can you apply for this funding?’ And then the answer came from one of the participants in the press conference: ‘From Monday.’ All of our mailboxes collapsed. Today I am happy that we got through it well and that it ended well.”
The career break lasted four months due to burnout, according to Kopf on Ö3: “I came back stronger than I was before. I also learned tricks to take care of myself: be careful, go out a lot, get enough sleep. It’s a disease that can be diagnosed, treated, and resolved. That is an important message that I can give to everyone.”
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