Purchasing Power Series Austria: Styria Only Recording Below-Average Purchasing Power

The dominance of agriculture as well as weak industry are responsible for Styria's below-average performance in terms of purchasing power. The southern federal state is tied with Corinthia for 7th place in the federal states purchasing power ranking.

Admittedly, Styrians were able to catch up somewhat with an average purchasing power of around 16,870 euro per capita. However, growth was still lower than the Austrian average. The current purchasing power index per inhabitant is currently at 94.3 points.

Looking at municipalities, purchasing power is above-average in Graz but also in the regional capital's affluent suburbs as well as in more tourism-heavy areas (for instance Schladming, Ramsau am Dachstein, and Rohrmoos-Untertal). Styria's weakest municipalities in terms of purchasing power are characterised by low populations – also a result of the migration during past decades – and an agriculture-based structure. Compared to the rest of Austria, Styria is also composed of especially many very small townships, due to there having been no municipal amalgamations following the Second World War.

In comparison to other federal states, Styria is a structurally underdeveloped region. This can be explained by the strong dominance of agriculture (forestry, alpine agriculture, wine-growing) as well as the problems plaguing the industrial sector (metalworking industry, wood processing) as a result of globalisation. The past decades have seen the loss of particularly many jobs in industry.