Civil servants satisfied with their jobs

Civil servants are satisfied with their jobs, but workers in the retail-trade sector are not, according to the results of a new poll by the Upper Austrian Labour Chamber (AK) released today (Fri).AK said its labour-climate index had fallen to 110 points in early 2010, only two points higher than in autumn 2007. It added that poll results showed three out of every ten retail-trade employees were dissatisfied with their jobs, up from one in every 10 in 2007.AK noted that dissatisfaction among retail-trade workers was independent of the size of the firms they worked for and their sex and that the number of such workers who had lost their jobs was increasing.AK also said the percentage of Austrians optimistic about the economy had fallen from 84 per cent in autumn 2007 to 61 per cent in autumn 2009 but had subsequently risen to 67 per cent.Part-time jobs had increased, but part-time workers were more dissatisfied than their full-time counterparts, AK added, in part because more part-time than full-time workers considered their future job prospects to be poor at best.Part-time workers also worried that their future state pensions would not be sufficient to live on, AK said.