Brief overview of the Institute for Employment Research (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung), 2 February 2010
In 2009, flexible working time and short-time work safeguarded more than a million jobs
For the most part, flexible working times absorbed the brunt of the economic crisis on the German labour market in 2009, the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) reports. Employees' average annual working time decreased by 3.2 per cent, for instance though short-time work and the reduction of credit hours on working time accounts. "In figures, this decrease corresponds to roughly 1.2 million jobs saved," according to the labour market researchers Eugen Spitznagel and Susanne Wanger.
The number of short-time workers rose in leaps and bounds in 2009 and was equivalent to over a million, on a yearly average. Their normal working time was reduced by a good third. Calculated against the total number of employees, this amounted to 15.5 working hours a year, after 1.8 hours in 2008. The current state of working time accounts dropped by 9.3 hours per employee in 2009. Paid overtime also dwindled strongly: per employee, 13 paid overtime hours less were performed than in 2008. The rate of sick leave remained both unchanged and low at 3.3 per cent. Employees' normal weekly working time became shorter for the first time in two years: at an average of 30 weekly hours, it was 0.3 hours less than in 2008. This was partly due to reductions in the wake of the crisis and to the increase in part-time work.
For instance, the number of those employed part-time in 2009 rose by roughly 220,000 (+1.8 per cent), while about 240,000 fulltime jobs were lost (-1.0 per cent). "The number of fulltime employees is more strongly dependent upon the general economic situation than that of part-time employees," IAB's labour market researchers say. In branches of industry which have been strongly affected by the economic slump, part-time work is comparatively seldom; in private, social and public service sectors on the other hand, the portion taken up by part-time work is distinctly higher.
All in all, an average of 1,309 working hours were performed per employee in 2009, 43.5 hours or 3.2 per cent less than in 2008. However the rate of the drop in working time slowed down over the second half of the year, according to the IAB researchers: "The possibilities that establishments have of equalling out the underutilization of their staff by means of flexible working times have now for the most part been exhausted."
The macroeconomic volume of work of all persons in employment shrank in 2009 by 2.9 per cent. However, in contrast to employees, the working time of the self-employed and their supporting family members hardly decreased. As macroeconomic production was 5 per cent lower than in the year before, productivity per working hour dropped by 2.1 per cent.
IAB has published a table showing the development of working time at http://doku.iab.de/grauepap/2010/tab-az09en.pdf.