Is Part-Time Employment Beneficial for Firm Productivity?

Annemarie Künn-Nelen, Andries de Grip and Didier Fouarge

No 5423, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper analyzes whether part-time employment is beneficial for firm productivity in the service sector. Using a unique dataset on the Dutch pharmacy sector that includes the work hours of all employees and a “hard” physical measure of firm productivity, we estimate a production function including heterogeneous employment shares based on work hours. We find that a larger part-time employment share leads to greater firm productivity. Additional data on the timing of labor demand show that part-time employment enables firms to allocate labor more efficiently. First, firms with part-time workers can bridge the gap between opening hours and a full-time work week. Second, we find that during opening hours part-time workers are scheduled differently than full-timers. For example, we find that part-time workers enable their full-time colleagues to take lunch breaks so that the firm can remain open during these times.

Keywords: timing of labor demand; heterogeneous labor; matched employer-employee data; allocation of labor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 L23 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2011-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eff, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published - published in: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 2013, 66 (5), 1172-1191

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Related works:
Journal Article: Is Part-Time Employment Beneficial for Firm Productivity? (2013)
Working Paper: Is part-time employment beneficial for firm productivity? (2011)
Working Paper: Is part-time employment beneficial for firm productivity? (2011)
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