Einführung der Brückenteilzeit: bislang keine spürbaren Folgen für Teilzeitjobs

"Since the introduction of temporary part-time work on 1 January 2019, employees have been entitled to reduce their contractual working hours for a limited period of time and then resume their originally agreed working hours. The results of this report show that the reform was not associated with major changes in part-time employment in companies whose employees were entitled to make use of such temporary working time reductions. In our analysis, we define establishments that were not affected by the reform as those that belong to companies with up to 45 employees, while affected establishments are part of companies with more than 45 and up to 200 employees. Establishments that are part of larger companies with more than 200 employees were also affected by the reform, but are not considered here for the sake of poorer comparability. A comparison of part-time rates in establishments that were affected by the reform and those that were not shows that over the entire observation period from 2014 to 2021, part-time rates in non-affected establishments were higher than in affected establishments. This pattern has not changed after the introduction of temporary part-time work came into force in 2019. With the onset of the Covid-19 recession, establishments experienced a slightly lower increase in part-time employment. The lower increase can be observed both in affected establishments (i.e., those belonging to companies with more than 45 and up to 200 employees) and in smaller establishments that are exempt from the regulations. However, the post-reform slow-down of the increase in part-time employment appears to have been slightly lower in affected establishments. A causal interpretation of these results if limited by the fact that, especially for the years 2020 and 2021, it is generally hard to disentangle reform-induced effects on part-time employment from Covid-19 related shocks. Overall, our findings suggest that for an establishment with 200 employees the increase in the number of part-time employees over the post-reform relative to the pre-reform period is on average 1 person higher than in establishments that were not affected by the reform. However, this increase is too small to help ensure that part-time shares in affected establishments can keep pace with the higher shares of non-affected establishments. A mandatory restriction, which stipulates an upper limit of temporary working time reductions in companies with more than 45 and up to 200 employees, cannot plausibly explain this small change. Another explanation could be that individual take-up is low as the current rules are perceived as too inflexible. For example, according to the current regulation employees can apply for temporary part-time work for a minimum of one year and for a maximum of 5 years. In addition, it is not possible to return to the originally agreed working hours during the requested period. Moreover, the negligible effects on part-time shares observed during the Covid-19 recession may also reflect that workers may have shown greater reluctance to reduce their working hours during this period. The question of whether the reform has increased the share of part-time work during the economic recovery after the recession is left for future research." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))