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The Great Recession triggered a resurgence of short-time work (STW) throughout the OECD. Several countries introduced STW from scratch or significantly expanded the scope of the programmes already in place. In some countries like Italy, Japan and Germany between 2.5% and 5% of the workforce participated in STW schemes at the trough of the recession. In this paper we analyse the rationale for STW benefits and their effects on labour adjustment from both a cross-country and a time-series perspective. We find that STW actually contributed to reduce job losses dunng the Great Recession. However, the number of jobs saved, according to our macroeconomic and microeconomic estimates, is smaller than the number of participants in these schemes and the full-time equivalent jobs involved, pointing in some countries to sizeable deadweight costs. Other institutions, like plant-level bargaining over hours, wages and employment leveb, may be more effective than STW in encouraging adjustment along the intensive margins in the presence of temporary shocks. Our results also suggest that STW cannot be readily extended to countries having much different institutional configurations as the demand for STW is very much affected by other institutions such as employment protection legislation and the degree of centralization of collective bargaining. Furthermore, STW must be temporary as during upturns may actually negatively affect employment. We also find that specific design features of STW - such as experience-rating and disincentives to 100% reductions in working hours - are important in improving the cyclical properties of STW.

Following the covid-induced lockdowns, many commented on the role the German model of Kurzarbeit could play in reducing unemployment. Other countries emulated the model. Looking at the experiences of Germany, the UK, Sweden and the USA, the article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of short-time working (STW) schemes. It asks whether STW has been well designed to have optimal short and longer run impact. It is quite effective as a short-term palliative, but in longer downturns, its weaknesses come to the fore. It is by no means clear that the UK needs a permanent replacement for the furlough.

The paper examines why the pandemic recession hit the labour market in Slovakia differently from previous recessions. Traditionally, the unemployment rose sharply during previous economic recessions. Therefore, it seemed like a novelty when the unemployment rate rose only insignificantly in a pandemic recession. We find that both the demand and supply side of the labour market played their role in it. Labour demand has been affected differently compared to the past: Instead of the usual sharp increase in unemployment during a recession, the rate of utilization of workers’ time capacities fell, with expected impacts also on income differentiation. This is in line with the way more advanced European economies have responded to recessions before. In addition, a new element was also present on the labour force supply side. In previous recessions, the labour force supply had been rising; in the recent pandemic recession, it fell for the first time.

. At the height of the economic crisis in mid‐2009, the number of Germany's short‐time workers peaked at 1.5 million. Unemployment would otherwise have increased by approximately twice as much as it did. But while short‐time work certainly helped to cushion the labour market impact of the crisis, the authors caution that the country's specific circumstances preclude simple generalizations regarding its global effectiveness. Moreover, they argue, subsequent amendments to the regulatory framework made the scheme vulnerable to abuse, as reflected in the significant numbers of short‐term workers in industries unaffected by the crisis and the emergence of a pattern of “long‐term” short‐time work.

Precarious employment has been associated with adverse occupational health and safety (OHS) outcomes across a range of studies. Temporary agency workers are particularly vulnerable, with studies showing they experience a higher incidence of workplace injury, and a greater likelihood of more severe injuries than all other employment types. Explanations for agency workers’ higher risk of injury have, to date, been impeded by data limitations associated with researching temporary employment. This article seeks to begin filling this gap through analyzing the experience of agency workers based upon two data sources. The first is a unique qualitative and quantitative data set developed from investigated temporary agency and directly hired workers’ compensation files; the second is focus groups of agency workers conducted in the State of Victoria, Australia. Quinlan and Bohle’s (2004) Pressures, Disorganization and Regulatory Failure (PDR) model, developed to explain the greater OHS vulnerability of precarious workers, provides the framework for analyzing the data. After explaining the key concepts in the PDR Model, the article analyses the data to test for evidence of economic pressures, disorganization at the workplace, and regulatory failure impacting upon temporary agency workers’ health and safety. The analysis supports the relevance of the PDR model, and provides an understanding of additional and unique risk factors which contribute to agency workers’ higher risk of injury. Temporary agency workers experience economic pressures in common with other types of precarious workers. However, these appear more acute amongst agency workers. They also confront disorganization risks, extending to mismatched placements; lack of familiarity with host workplaces; and more complex fractured communication. These contribute to workplace risks and create barriers to improving their experience. Many of these outcomes are a result of, or contribute to regulatory failure. The analysis finds strong support for the explanatory value of the PDR model as a tool for understanding how precariousness contributes to temporary agency workers’ adverse health and safety outcomes. It also suggests the complexities of the triangular employment relationship create additional economic insecurities and disorganization problems beyond those experienced by other types of workers, which the regulatory environment has yet to address.

Improving the responsiveness of service providers to the needs of users has been a principal aim of welfare state reform. In the context of employment provision, this article explores the effects of a job outcome-oriented performance system on the responsiveness of providers to the needs of unemployed refugees. These effects concern, first, the type of refugees to whom providers are responsive and, second, the type of employment assistance provided. It is argued that an emphasis on short-term job outcomes may conflict with supporting refugees who are ‘harder to help’, particularly those with English language needs. It may also conflict with supporting refugees to access employment related to their skills and interests by encouraging providers to focus on placing refugees in ‘easy to access’, low-skilled and low-paid jobs. The effects may, therefore, serve to reproduce labour market inequalities experienced by refugees.

This paper considers the use of short-time work (STW) schemes as a device to mitigate the negative effects of the current global recession on employment levels. STW schemes have been regarded as a popular and successful counter-cyclical policy to maintain workers in employment. However, by comparing and contrasting the experience of Germany and Italy, we argue that the effectiveness of STW schemes should only be evaluated in relation to ( i ) the institutional set-up within which they operate, and ( ii ) the whole set of labour market policies adopted by each country.

Many countries used short-time working arrangements (STWAs) as a response to the Great Recession of 2008–2009. STWAs are designed to protect jobs during short-term downturns by adjusting the work durations of employees. We study STWAs in France between 2007 and 2010. The objective of this paper is to describe the main characteristics of firms and employees operating under STWAs by using firm-level STW data sets and the French Labor Force Survey.

This article studies the behaviour of a firm searching to fill a vacancy. The main assumption is that the firm can offer two different kinds of contracts to the workers, either a short-term contract or a long-term one. The short-term contract acts as a probationary stage in which the firm can learn about the worker. After this stage, the firm can propose a long-term contract to the worker or it can decide to look for another worker. We show that, if the short-term wage is fixed endogenously, it can be optimal for firms to start a working relationship with a short-term contract, but that this policy decreases unemployment and welfare. On the contrary, if the wage is fixed exogenously, this policy could be optimal also from a welfare point of view.

Présente un caractère sérieux la question prioritaire de constitutionnalité relative à l'article L. 1243-10, 2° du code du travail en ce qu'il traite de façon différente les jeunes ayant conclu un contrat de travail à durée déterminée pendant les vacances scolaires et universitaires par rapport, d'une part, aux étudiants ne répondant pas à ce critère d'âge et, d'autre part, aux autres salariés ayant conclu un tel contrat, et serait susceptible de porter atteinte au principe d'égalité. Reproduced by permission of Bibliothèque de Sciences Po