Eleven Lower Austrian skilled workers head to the WorldSkills in Shanghai

Waldviertel duo and a trio from the region

In the team competition for concrete construction, Julian Gintner and Michael Pomassl from Vitis will take to the starting line. Both are employed at the Leyrer + Graf company in Gmünd. This means the country is fielding a discipline in which Austria was most recently particularly successful: Stefan Huber and Christoph Kurz from Zwettl had won gold in concrete construction at the previous competition.

Also from the Waldviertel comes Marcel Riener from Reingers, who will compete as a plumbing and heating technician. He works at the Raiffeisen-Lagerhaus Gmünd-Vitis in Gmünd. Three Waldviertel craftsmen are thus on their way to the world summit in total.

The remaining Lower Austrian participants are spread across various occupational fields. Benedikt Pritz will start in rail vehicle technology, Christian Hiesberger in automotive technology, and Christoph Schöndorfer in electronics. Jonas Baltuska will represent the region in optoelectronics, Raphael Beutel in digital production technology, and Paul Meisterhofer in the construction carpentry category. Elias Stephan will compete in the cabinetmaking craft, while Valentina Otzelberger will take part as a confectioner.

Track record: Three medals last time

A generation of young skilled workers is thus stepping up that wants to build on previous successes. At the previous WorldSkills, the Austrian apprentices had won a total of three medals, including gold through the florist Manuel Bender from Wiener Neustadt and silver through the painter Lena Prinz from Enzesfeld-Lindabrunn.

Education Provincial Councillor Christiane Teschl-Hofmeister underlined the importance of dual education: "Diese enge Verzahnung von Praxis und Theorie schafft beste Voraussetzungen für Spitzenleistungen".

Broad foundation in apprenticeship training

Apprenticeship training in Lower Austria is currently broadly based. More than 15,000 young people in the federal state are currently undertaking an apprenticeship, spread across 18 locations of vocational schools. Participation in the WorldSkills is regarded as an important showcase for the quality of this training.

For the eleven-member team, the intensive preparation phase for the competition in China now begins. In mid-September, the apprentices will travel to Shanghai to compete against the international competition in their respective disciplines.

With the mix of established showcase companies such as Leyrer + Graf, the Raiffeisen-Lagerhaus Gmünd-Vitis cooperative, and a broad range of trades, Lower Austria aims — in its own portrayal — once again to convey a positive image of domestic skilled-worker training.