The Employment Effects of Working Time Reductions: Sector-Level Evidence from European Reforms

Cyprien Batut, Andrea Garnero and Alessandro Tondini

No 2022-04, FBK-IRVAPP Working Papers from Research Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies (IRVAPP), Bruno Kessler Foundation

Abstract: Working time legislation is a key labour market regulation and the subject of heated and recurrent debates. A first-order concern is how this legislation may impact employment. In this paper, we exploit a panel of industry-level data in European countries to study the economic impact of national reductions in usual weekly working hours between 1995 and 2007. Our identification strategy relies on the five national reforms that took place over this period and on initial differences across sectors in the share of workers exposed to the reforms. We show that, on average, the number of hours worked in more affected sectors fell relative to less affected sectors but employment did not increase, while the impact on wages and value-added per hour worked appears to be positive but insignificant.

Keywords: working time; work sharing; employment; wages; value-added (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J20 J30 J80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eec and nep-lma
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Related works:
Journal Article: The employment effects of working time reductions: Sector‐level evidence from European reforms (2023)
Working Paper: The Employment Effects of Working Time Reductions: Sector-Level Evidence from European Reforms (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fbk:wpaper:2022-04

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