Cross-country comparison of operating hours, capacity utilisation, working times and employment

Abstract

"The present chapter contains a cross-country analysis of the EUCOWE survey results, exploring the relationship between operating hours, capacity utilisation, working times and employment. All of the comparisons are completely new for a number of reasons: there are no comparable surveys with ex ante harmonisation and harmonised data processing; the data Sets that have been used up to now did not cover all sectors of economy; previous surveys only took hours of work and shift working as the means of manipulating operating hours; finally, the flexibility of operating hours has never been investigated. The chapter is structured as follows. First it comments an the economic structure of the countries under study on the basis of our primary data. Section 3.2 addresses the distribution of establishments and employees over sectors of activity of the six countries and Section 3.3 pictures the distribution of establishments and employees over size classes of the establishments. Then, Section 3.4 compares the duration and flexibility of operating hours in the respective countries, mainly subdivided by sectors and supplemented by information on establishment size. The ensuing discussion Shows which working time patterns - the instruments for the management of the operating hours - are used to construct the operating hours. Here, we concentrate an shift work, staggered working times and the effective individual working time of the employees. 'Decoupling indicators' are presented as an alternative to depict how an establishment decouples operating hours from the individual working times of the employees. Section 3.5 compares the extent to which establishments in the different countries are exposed to fluctuations in business activity and the causes of these fluctuations. Furthermore, the discussion analyses the strategies adopted by establishments to cope with these fluctuations. This analysis is carried out for broad sectors of the economy (producing industries versus services). Section 3.6 examines the cross-country differences in the relationship between the development of operating hours and employment (1998-2003). Section 3.7 provides a comparative analysis of the decoupling of operating hours, working times and capacity utilisation. Section 3.8 concludes the chapter." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Bauer, F., Groß, H., Munoz de Bustillo y Llorente, R., Fernández-Macías, E. & Sieglen, G. (2007): Cross-country comparison of operating hours, capacity utilisation, working times and employment. In: L. Delsen, D. Bosworth, H. Groß & Munoz de Bustillo y Llorente, Rafael (Hrsg.) (2007): Operating hours and working times : a survey of capacity utilisation and employment in the European Union, p. 41-71.