The business development bank of the Public Employment Service Austria (Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH - aws) is coordinating the program to fund ancillary wage costs. Verifiably paid employer contributions are funded once a year. Up to 1,500 startups will benefit from the financial support of up to EUR 125,000 each. In this way about 3,000 jobs are created annually. In order to avoid threshold effects i.e. to surprise young companies with sudden expenditures after expiration of the three-year period, funding will be reduced by one-third every year. Ancillary wage costs will be fully refunded in the first year, whereas two-thirds of the costs will be covered in the second year and one-third in the third year of the program.

This measure, one part of the Startup Package, targets innovative, high-growth startups. These firms must not be older than five years and must have their head office or an operating facility in Austria. Companies can make use of the aws Startup PreCheck to determine whether they fulfill the precise funding criteria. In a self-test, they will immediately be given feedback about the probability of receiving funding. The most important criteria is growth in the number of employees. Startups with more than ten employees must achieve a 10% annual growth in the work force in the first three years after the application was submitted, whereas firms with less than 10 employees have to create five new jobs.

The aws Ancillary Wage Cost Calculator also gives companies the possibility to figure out in advance the funding procedure they will subject to and the maximum grant to which they are entitled. Applications can be submitted directly to the Public Employment Service Austria (Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH - aws) as of January 1, 2017.

Further information is available at: www.aws.at