Has Work-sharing Worked in Finland?

Abstract

The paper investigates the employment effects of working time reductions in Finland by dividing the economy into six main sectors from 1960 to 1996. Work-sharing works if there exists a tradeoff between the average working time and employment. This means that a reduction in average working hours delivers an increase in employment. The main result is that a reduction in actual average hours seems to deliver an increase in employment in the short run on condition that output does not deteriorate as a result of shorter average working time.

• ISSN: 1236-7184
• ISBN: 952-5071-26-X
• JEL: J21
• Publication in PDF-format