Is part-time employment beneficial for firm productivity?

A.C. Künn-Nelen*, A. de Grip, D. Fouarge

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

With this article, the authors are the first to analyze and explain the relationship between part-time employment and firm productivity. Using a unique data set on the Dutch pharmacy sector that includes the working hours of all employees and a "hard" physical measure of firm productivity, the authors estimate a production function including heterogeneous employment shares based on working hours. The authors find that firms with a large part-time employment share are more productive than firms with a large share of full-time workers: a 10% increase in the part-time share is associated with 4.8% higher productivity. Additional data on the timing of labor demand show that this can be explained by a different allocation of part-timers compared with full-timers. This enables firms with large part-time employment shares to allocate their labor force more efficiently across working days.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1172-1191
Number of pages20
JournalIndustrial & Labor Relations Review
Volume66
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2013

Keywords

  • HUMAN-RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
  • FULL-TIME
  • WAGES
  • WORK
  • IMPACT
  • LABOR
  • PERFORMANCE
  • LEVEL

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