Since April 21, around 350 financial police officers have checked around 2,493 companies and 9,749 people on short-time work. On May 10, the Ministry of Finance announced the control of 5,119 people working short-time in 1,946 companies and 31 reports of abuse. In the case of short-time corona work, the AMS reimburses the employer for the costs of downtime in accordance with fixed flat rates.
In the past two months, 1,243 violations under the Foreign Nationals Employment Act, the General Social Insurance Act, the Unemployment Insurance Act, the Wage and Social Dumping Control Act and the Working Hours Act have also been recorded in the financial police controls.
The head of the financial police, Wilfried Lehner, did not want to request more staff for his anti-fraud unit when journalists asked. “It is not my job to speculate about resources, my job is to make the most efficient possible out of it with the available resources,” said Lehner. During the controls, one noticed that many companies abide by the short-time regime. However, there were “some blatant mistakes,” said the finance officer. An entrepreneur, for example, set his employees on 90 percent short-time work, but then let them continue to work normally.
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