Réduction de la durée du travail et complémentarité des niveaux de qualification

This paper builds on a model with qualified and non-qualified workers to investigate the employment consequences of a work-sharing policy. The two types of workers are perfect complements in the production of labor services. They differ with respect to their hour effectiveness, which entails longer working hours for the qualified. A not too strong legal constraint on working time would affect only qualified workers. In this case, as the cost of one unit of labor services increases, the demand for less qualified workers goes down. An undifferentiated policy of working time reduction may harm low qualified workers, which are also the most exposed to unemployment.

CONTENSOU, F. and VRANCEANU, R. (1998). Réduction de la durée du travail et complémentarité des niveaux de qualification. ESSEC Business School.