Austria’s Integration Minister Claudia Bauer is urging the government to move quickly on a new integration law, saying the country “urgently” needs the legislation.
Bauer wants the reform of social assistance and the related integration obligations law to be ready by October so they can take effect at the beginning of next year. She made the remarks on Friday during the presentation of the Statistical Yearbook “Migration and Integration.”
The minister said the proposed reforms would make integration more binding. She pointed to the low employment rate among migrant women as one reason for introducing the new rules, as reported by the Kronen Zeitung.
Bauer also stressed that she had submitted her part of the legislative package several months ago. The social assistance reform, however, was only recently sent by the Social Ministry for coordination within the governing coalition. She is now calling on her partners to speed up the process.
According to Bauer, voluntary measures have not delivered the desired results. She cited 13,000 abandoned integration courses as clear evidence that stronger obligations are needed. In her view, better German-language skills and greater participation in the labour market could give migrant women more independence.
Overall, 74 percent of people with a migration background are employed or active in the labour market, compared with 79 percent of people without a migration background. But the figure falls to 59 percent among women from non EU countries. Participation is particularly low among people from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.
Austria’s migrant population has also grown sharply. In 2025, an average of 2.55 million people had a migration background more than one million above the 2010 figure. Romanians were the largest immigrant group during that period, followed by Syrians. Germans remain the largest foreign national group in Austria, with around 242,000 people. Ukrainians, whose numbers have risen since Russia’s invasion, are now the country’s ninth-largest national group.
A Statistics Austria survey of 5,400 people found that Ukrainians felt the strongest connection to their homeland and were least likely to speak German. Syrians and Afghans, meanwhile, reported the strongest sense of belonging to Austria.
For Bauer, the figures show that Austria needs firmer integration rules. The debate now centres on whether language learning and employment should remain voluntary or become clear legal responsibilities.
