Work Sharing: The Quick Route Back to Full Employment

Dean Baker

CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs from Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

Abstract: This paper outlines a proposal for a system of work sharing that would give employers an incentive to maintain workers on their payroll at reduced hours as an alternative to laying them off. The system would be attached to the existing system of unemployment compensation, with shorttime compensation as an alternative to unemployment compensation. This means that work sharing would require no new government bureaucracy. In fact, 21 states (including California and New York) already have short-time compensation as an option under their unemployment insurance system. In these states a governmental structure already exists to support work sharing, although there would have to be changes to make the system more user friendly so as to increase take-up rates.

Keywords: work sharing; unemployment; employment; recession; Germany; United States (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E E2 E24 E6 E66 H J J6 J65 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:epo:papers:2011-15

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