Capitalists Against Crisis: Employers and Short Time Work in Germany and Italy, 2008-2010

Federico Pancaldi

No 222, Carlo Alberto Notebooks from Collegio Carlo Alberto

Abstract: Why did employers pro-actively support the temporary expansion of short time work (STW) schemes during the recent crisis? This paper conceptualizes the role of STW in this contingency as an instrument of subsidized job protection that enabled employers to hoard skilled labor, reduce non-wage labor costs on fallen work hours, and preserve social rest with unions. Two sources of variation are analyzed, at cross-national and cross-sectoral level. By comparing Germany and Italy, the paper finds that employers support for STW was especially strong in skill-intensive manufacturing sectors in both countries, in line with theoretical expectations. However, cross-national diversity in the design and institutional function of STW within their respective labor market regimes shaped different incentive structures for employers in small firms and low-skill services. More generous subsidization of STW through public resources explains the stronger favor of this group in Italy than in Germany.

Keywords: employers; short time work; employment protection; financial crisis; crosssectoral approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J65 J68 K31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.carloalberto.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/no.222.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cca:wpaper:222

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Carlo Alberto Notebooks from Collegio Carlo Alberto Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Giovanni Bert ().