Propak warns of growing competitive disadvantage for domestic printing and paper processing industry

Study confirms loss of market share

The root-cause analysis points to two central factors: on the one hand, unit labor costs in Austria rose by around 37 percent between 2017 and 2025, compared with only 27 percent in the euro area. On the other, real labor productivity in Austria, with a gain of around 4 percent, lagged significantly behind comparable countries: Poland recorded a gain of 25 percent over the same period, Slovakia 20 percent, and Hungary 17 percent. Competitors from Eastern and Southern Europe, including Italy and Spain, have gained an average of more than two percentage points of market share in Austrian core markets.

The current business figures reflect the difficult situation. The production value of the 83 member companies fell by 3 percent last year to 2.2 billion euros. Exports recorded a slight decline of 0.4 percent. Non-packaging products were particularly affected, with a value decline of 4.4 percent, while the packaging sector fell by 1.9 percent. Schuster described 2025 overall as a "robust, but slightly declining" year for the industry.

Production and exports trending downward

Productivity in the domestic paper-processing industry has been falling steadily since 2021, according to the study. The association sees this as a clear signal that urgent political action is needed. Schuster expects at best flat growth for 2026 and describes the industry's outlook as cautious.

In the otherwise subdued environment, the only positive development is in the labor market: employment remained stable, and the number of apprentices even rose by 2.6 percent. Nonetheless, industry representatives see overall competitiveness at risk and are pushing for measures.

Criticism of missing EU regulations

Alongside location issues, Schuster also criticized bureaucratic hurdles coming from Brussels. He complained that more than 20 implementing regulations were missing at the European level, creating planning uncertainty for companies. He called for the missing legal acts to be put in place quickly so that the industry could once again plan with greater reliability.

The industry is thus pushing for two lines of action: a tangible improvement in location conditions to close the cost and productivity gap, and at the same time more planning certainty through complete EU regulations. Whether policymakers will heed the warnings was initially unclear.