Abstract
In recent years many people have proposed a general reduction of the number of working hours as an effective measure to reduce unemployment rates in the European countries. This proposal has had a strong effect on public opinion, since the “working-less-for-everyone-to-be-able-to-work” assumption seems to be a self-evident truth. But there is a fallacy involved in this assumption: the labour market is rather dynamic and neither the jobs available nor the number of applicants have to remain fixed when the standard working hours are reduced by legal means.
I am grateful to José Miguel Sánchez-Molinero for helpful comments and suggestions. I acknowledge financial support for Spanish Ministry of Labour.
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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Pérez-Domínguez, C. (2002). Effects of a Reduction of Standard Working Hours on Labour Market Performance. In: Coto-Millán, P. (eds) Essays on Microeconomics and Industrial Organisation. Contributions to Economics. Physica, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-11710-1_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-11710-1_12
Publisher Name: Physica, Heidelberg
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