Orderly Migration, Controlled Job-Seeking? Balancing the Labour Market in Austrian Agriculture (1918–1938)

Despite repeated economic crises and high unemployment, debates on rural flight in Austria continued after WW I. At least until the late 1920s, farmers and administrative authorities bemoaned a lack of agricultural workers, particularly during labour peaks. On the basis of administrative sources, this article deals with state efforts to bring the perceived disequilibrium in the labour market into balance and/or to ensure the availability of farm workers. State measures, however, often pursued contradictory goals: the recruitment of non-Austrian seasonal workers counteracted the labour market administration’s efforts to universally organise and nationalise the labour market. Compounding this, workers and farmers undermined official regulations such as employment restrictions and avoided state attempts to place industrial unemployed in agriculture. This chapter investigates such resistance and shows the complexity of workers’ internal and cross-border migration as well as their occupational mobility.Despite repeated economic crises and high unemployment, debates on rural flight in Austria continued after WW I. At least until the late 1920s, farmers and administrative authorities bemoaned a lack of agricultural workers, particularly during labour peaks. On the basis of administrative sources, this article deals with state efforts to bring the perceived disequilibrium in the labour market into balance and/or to ensure the availability of farm workers. State measures, however, often pursued contradictory goals: the recruitment of non-Austrian seasonal workers counteracted the labour market administration’s efforts to universally organise and nationalise the labour market. Compounding this, workers and farmers undermined official regulations such as employment restrictions and avoided state attempts to place industrial unemployed in agriculture. This chapter investigates such resistance and shows the complexity of workers’ internal and cross-border migration as well as their occupational mobility