Short Time Work In Europe

More countries than ever are using short-time work as a labour market policy instrument to secure employment and limit the social costs of the current Corona crisis. Despite considerable differences in the institutional design and logic of short-time work schemes, the rapid deployment and high take-up of short-time work benefits is a high priority in all European countries. Highlighting the economic rationality of short-time work the report classifies European short-time work programmes into different clusters. The paper describes significant changes in the programme design since March 2020 and discusses possible effects against the background of former empirical findings.