Share Of Part-time Employment Research Articles

Labour market flexibility as a factor in economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has largely undermined most economies in the world. To a significant extent the reasons behind this economic nosedive are rooted in the sphere of labour market. The imposed restriction measures made many workers stay at home, and part of them even lost their jobs. The speed of economic recovery in different countries varied depending on how quarantine restrictions were eased. One crucial factor in this process is labour market flexibility and its ability to adapt to changing economic conditions. The purpose of the paper is to explore the relationship between the labour market flexibility and the speed of GDP recovery when the pandemic was waning and the quarantine restrictions were being removed. Methodologically, the study relies on labour economics. The methods are multivariate and logistic regression analysis. The data for the study is sourced from the World Bank and Eurostat and comprises statistics for assessing labour market flexibility and GDP in various countries for 2020–2021. The findings indicate a reverse relationship between the speed of GDP growth recovery during the post-COVID period and the share of part-time employment. Yet taking into account that part-time employment is not only an indicator of the labour market flexibility, but also reflects a general slowdown in production and unemployment, we can attach low speed of recovery to a greater weakness of an economy. The obtained results are insufficient to reject the hypothesis that a more flexible labour market accelerates the recovery of a national economy. At the same time, the study demonstrates that the West European countries generally got over the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis faster than other EU countries. The research contributes to understanding the transformation processes in the labour market under the pandemic as well as provides support for labour market policy development and implementation.

Dynamics of part-time employment to an aggregate shock: A sign-restriction approach

This paper provides new stylized facts about the responses of the part-time employment share, the transition probability from full-time to part-time and the one from part-time to full-time jobs to a negative aggregate shock. The recessionary aggregate shock is identified within a sign-restriction VAR framework by imposing a short-run negative co-movement between unemployment and vacancies. The negative aggregate shock pushes the part-time employment share up. The latter increase is mainly due to a rise in the probability at which full-time work is transformed into part-time work without an intervening spell of unemployment. Given that such transitions mainly take place at the same firm/worker pair, these findings indicate that US firms use – in addition to the creation/destruction process – within-employment reallocation to adjust their labor input in recessionary episodes.

ZATRUDNIENIE W NIEPEŁNYM WYMIARZE CZASU PRACY

Time-part Employment – Chances and ThreatsSummaryOver the last twenty years, an increasing share of employment across the EU countries has been made up of part time jobs. That is why the growth in part-time employment stands out as a prominent feature of modern labor markets. However, there are still remarkable differences in the relative volumes of the part-time employment share in different countries within the European Union.In recent years, the issue of labor market flexibility has become prominent in the debate over the labor market policy in Europe. The lack of dynamism in the flexibility of the labor markets within the EU countries, often characterized by a height share of long- term unemployment and stringent employment protection legislation, has frequently been blamed for the poor employment performance of the 80s and 90s.An increase in the rate of part-time work has been generally perceived as a positive development as it enables the employers to adjust work hours to the cyclical conditions more easily, facilitates an adjustment of production and labor costs as well as attracts people, who were previously unwilling or unable to work, towards the labor market. But one has to notice that some studies have found that part-time workers earn less than their full time colleagues, my be less likely to receive some benefits and face reduced chances for promotion.

Wage determinants in the Swedish tourism sector

ABSTRACTA significant number of the jobs that are found in the tourism sector are relatively low-paying positions. The share of part-time employment is also large. This study focuses on individuals who have remained in the sector for many years and are making a career in tourism. The analysis is based on a balanced panel consisting of individuals who, between 2002 and 2011, lived and worked full time in the tourism industry in central Sweden. Data were analyzed using three different models; a cross-sectional OLS model was utilized for the analysis of the data from 2011 and both a pooled OLS model as well as a fixed-effect model were used in the analysis of data between 2002 and 2011. The fixed-effect model is important because it captures differences in ability among the individuals included in the study. The results show a lower income for individuals in the tourism sector compared to the rest of the economy. However, the results of the panel data estimations indicate that the effect of education is stronger for individuals in the tourism sector and that wage levels in this sector is more equal between the men and women, compared to the rest of the economy.

Regional Labor Markets: Unstable Equilibrium

In 2016, almost all the main labor market indicators, that is, wages and salaries, the level of the rate of unemployment and the share of part-time employment are close to the levels of 2015. The labor market virtually stands still in a state of shaky equilibrium. However, there are serious regional differences behind the dynamics of those indicators across the country. Though the rate of unemployment in Russia has increased somewhat in the past two years, in more than one-third of regions it fell; similar dynamics were observed in respect of the number of workers transferred to part-time employment. The analysis shows that regions applied various instruments to cut labor costs and that practice helped smooth the general nationwide dynamics of labor market indicators.

Is Part-Time Employment Beneficial for Firm Productivity?

With this article, the authors are the first to analyze and explain the relationship between part-time employment and firm productivity. Using a unique data set on the Dutch pharmacy sector that includes the working hours of all employees and a “hard” physical measure of firm productivity, the authors estimate a production function including heterogeneous employment shares based on working hours. The authors find that firms with a large part-time employment share are more productive than firms with a large share of full-time workers: a 10% increase in the part-time share is associated with 4.8% higher productivity. Additional data on the timing of labor demand show that this can be explained by a different allocation of part-timers compared with full-timers. This enables firms with large part-time employment shares to allocate their labor force more efficiently across working days.

A New Color in the Picture: The Impact of Educational Fields on Fertility in Western Germany

The extensive research on the impact of educational attainment on fertility behavior has been expanded by a new dimension. According to these recent findings, not only the level but also the field of education has to be taken into account. The field of education determines a great deal about labor market options and influences opportunities to combine employment and family life. The question this paper aims to answer is: How does the educational field influence the transition to parenthood of women and men in Western Germany? The German Socio Economic Panel (1984-2010) provides the data. Discrete time event history models are applied to examine the impact of the field of education on the transition to parenthood, looking at the time after graduation until a first child is born. Educational fields are grouped according to their most salient characteristic with regard to the share of women, the occupational specificity, the share of public-sector employment, and the share of part-time employment among people educated in the field. The models take the educational level into account and control for marital status, episodes of educational enrollment, and migration background. The results show that educational fields matter for the transition to a first birth only for women. For men, the results do not show a significant impact of educational fields on the transition rates to parenthood. However, they point at the importance of the educational level for the probability of men to become fathers. High transition rates are found among women educated in both female-dominated and male-dominated fields. The finding of low transition rates among women educated in public-sector fields come as a surprise, since, given the high workplace security in the public sector, they were expected to be among the women with high transition rates.

Is Part-Time Employment Beneficial for Firm Productivity?

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. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.) (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Recent Developments in Part-Time Work in Eu-15 Countries: Trends and Policy

A growing part-time employment share has been a main feature of a number of industrialized countries over the past two decades. A considerable variation in the rate of part-time work is evident by gender, age group, industrial sector and occupation. The stylized facts support the view that part-time employment represents an important opportunity particularly for young, older and female workers to enter the labour markets of the European Union. For the majority of workers in these groups, the decision to work part-time has been a voluntary one, which is all the more satisfactory in terms of welfare maximization. Our results indicate that the development of the part-time employment rate over time and the strong variation in the PTR across countries are significantly affected by policy and institutions. In particular policy measures geared toward encouraging part-time work are found to be positively related to actual part-time developments. These measures include both the legal framework directly affecting part-time positions and the creation of financial incentives (subsidies and improvement of social protection) to take up a part-time job. Moreover, other labour market institutions, including benefit systems and the stringency of employment protection legislation for regular contracts, are found to significantly but indirectly influence the growth in part-time work.

Long-Hours Working and Enterprise Bargaining

data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reveal that while average hours of work have changed very little in recent decades, this is the result of two forces pulling in opposite directions, with growth in the part-time employment share offsetting the rise in the average number of hours being worked by full-time employees. More importantly, it has been widely recognised that this increase in the average number of hours being worked by full-time employees is predominantly the result of an increase in the proportion of the workforce regularly working what might be thought of as excessive or unreasonable hours

Female employment growth in Britain, 1979–92: some competing hypotheses∗

Over the period 1979–92, the gender and status composition of employment has undergone significant change in Britain, which cannot be attributed merely to cyclical influences. In this paper changes in the pattern of employment by occupation, gender and part-time and full-time status are decomposed to cast some light on three hypotheses (buffer stock, substitution and segregation) which are designed to explain the growth of female employment in Britain over the period 1979–92. The results reveal that women have made some progress in achieving full-time employment positions, after correction for the influence of structural change and the declining full-time share of employment. It is noted, however, that following the labour market legislation of the 1980s full-time employment is not necessarily more secure than part-time. The long run substitution of part-time for full-time employment has benefited the employment of women, even though their share of part-time employment has declined. The analysis informs t...