TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hunt,Jennifer
TI  - The Response of Wages and Actual Hours Worked to the Reductions of Standard Hours
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5716
PY  - 1996
Y2  - August 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5716
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5716.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jennifer Hunt
Department of Economics
Rutgers University
New Jersey Hall
75 Hamilton Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1248
Tel: (732) 932-7363
E-Mail: jennifer.hunt@rutgers.edu
AB  - A transformation of what had become a universal 40 hour standard work week in Germany began in 1985 with reductions negotiated in the metal-working and printing sectors.  These reductions have continued through 1995, and were followed by reductions in other sectors.  The union campaign aimed to increase employment through work-sharing, and is being emulated in the United States with the launch of a reduced hours campaign by the AFL-CIO.  Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, I find that increased overtime or reduced short time was little used to offset the reduction in standard hours:  a one hour reduction in standard hours appears to have translated into a reduction in actual hours worked of between 0.85 and 1 hour for workers in manufacturing. One might expect this to have resulted in a loss of earnings for workers in affected industries.  However, I substantiate the union claim of full wage compensation :  reductions in standard hours were accompanied by a relative rise in the hourly straight-time wage of 2-3% for each hour fall in standard hours, enough to keep monthly earnings the same as in unaffected industries.
ER  -