The changing use of short-time work schemes: Evidence from two recessions

Abstract

We explore differences in resort to short-time work schemes between the recessions in the early 1990s and the late 2000s in Spain and Italy and explore how far these are associated with differences in employees’ personal and job-related characteristics. We use individual data from national Labour Force Surveys and perform a multivariate detailed decomposition. We find that participation in these schemes in the second recession would have been even greater without the changes in skills and production structures in both countries.