Autonomes Fahren statt Stop and Go: Vorschläge zur effektiven Gestaltung der deutschen Kurzarbeit

Abstract

This article argues that short-time work stabilized employment in Germany substantially during the Great Recession in 2008/09. The labor market instrument acted in timely manner, as it was used in a rule-based fashion. In addition, discretionary extensions were effective due to their interaction with the business cycle. To ensure that short-time work will be effective in the future, this article proposes an automatic facilitation of the access to short-time work in severe recessions. This reduces the likelihood of a too extensive use at the wrong point in time as well as structural instead of cyclical interventions.

Germany and the United States in coronavirus distress: internal versus external labour market flexibility

“…3 Policy measures to expand the use of STW had only a relevant impact in Germany. In line with the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the rule-based and the discretionary component of STW in safeguarding employment in the Great Recession (Balleer et al 2019;Gehrke and Hochmuth 2021), discretionary policy changes made the use of STW in the pandemic more attractive. The similarity of the changes in both crises is striking (Herzog-Stein et al 2021), albeit the extensions were much faster and more generous this time.…”