Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/51761 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5800
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Germany experienced an even deeper fall in GDP in the Great Recession than the United States, with little employment loss. Employers' reticence to hire in the preceding expansion, associated in part with a lack of confidence it would last, contributed to an employment shortfall equivalent to 40 percent of the missing employment decline in the recession. Another 20 percent may be explained by wage moderation. A third important element was the widespread adoption of working time accounts, which permit employers to avoid overtime pay if hours per worker average to standard hours over a window of time. We find that this provided disincentives for employers to lay off workers in the downturn. Although the overall cuts in hours per worker were consistent with the severity of the Great Recession, reduction of working time account balances substituted for traditional government-sponsored short-time work.
Subjects: 
unemployment
Germany
Great Recession
short time work
working time accounts
Hartz reforms
extensive vs. intensive employment margin
JEL: 
E24
E32
J6
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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