Latest news with #TobiasThomas
Russia Today
3 days ago
- Business
- Russia Today
EU state raises alarm about growing illiteracy
Almost a third of the population in Austria has poor reading skills, signaling an alarming trend, the EU country's government statistics office has said. The decline is particularly noticeable among those with jobs that require medium or low qualifications, Statistics Austria said in a statement earlier this week. In Austria, which has a population of nine million, a total of 29.0% or around 2.6 million people have a low level of literacy, according to data on the agency's website. The number of those who have problems with reading increased by 11.9% between 2012 and 2023, the figures show. The average literacy level among Austrians aged 16 to 65 stands at 254 points, which is significantly below the average of 260 points set by the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). People from 16 to 24 performed above the OECD average, while older people appear to have significantly lower reading skills than the expected level, the agency said. 'The differences in reading skills among adults are large, and this gap has continued to widen,' Tobias Thomas, Director General of Statistics Austria, was cited as saying. There has been 'a particularly strong decline' in the consumption of complex reading materials such as newspapers and magazines, with the Austrians mainly reading emails and other shorter texts, the agency noted. According to Statistics Austria, the number of those with low day-to-day math skills also grew by 6.7% between 2012 and 2023, amounting to 22.6% of the population. Russia's state-owned pollster VTSIOM said last year that 'reading remains a popular means of obtaining knowledge and information among the Russians' despite what it called 'serious competition' from visual media. In the poll carried out in November 2024, some 87% of respondents said that they had read something over the previous week. Fiction topped the chart of the most popular reading materials (40%) in Russia, leaving news and social media posts in second place (37%), according to VTSIOM's figures.
The Star
07-05-2025
- Business
- The Star
Austrians keep traveling in high numbers despite prolonged sluggish economy
VIENNA, May 7 (Xinhua) -- The Austrian population maintained a strong desire for travel in 2024, even as the country grappled with a sluggish economy and entered its second consecutive year of recession, according to data released by Statistics Austria on Wednesday. In 2024, 76.4 percent of people aged 15 and above took at least one holiday trip, nearly matching the record level of 76.7 percent in 2023. Young people between the ages of 15 to 24 were the most keen travellers, with a travel intensity of 89.2 percent, the data showed. "The Austrian population's desire to travel remains unbroken despite the weakening economy," said Statistics Austria Director General Tobias Thomas. A total of 27.53 million overnight holiday trips were made last year, including 13.03 million domestic trips and 14.5 million abroad. Domestic trips accounted for 47.3 percent of the total, while the neighboring Italy became the favorite outbound destination, taking up almost 20 percent of all holiday trips abroad. This high level of leisure travel contrasts with Austria's economic performance. The country's gross domestic product contracted by 1.1 percent in real terms in 2024 compared to the previous year, marking the second consecutive year of economic contraction. Reflecting this economic downturn, business travel declined slightly. Only 14.8 percent of the Austrian resident population made at least one overnight business trip in 2024, down from 15.9 percent in 2023, according to Statistics Austria.
