This paper aims at investigating whether or not and to what extent company-level pacts for employment and competitiveness (CLPs) have an impact on the accumulation of human capital. The effect of CLPs on further training is analyzed utilizing the IAB Establishment Panel data of the years 2003 to...

Using a three-stage least squares estimator, this paper analyzes within a three equation model the effects of company-level pacts involving reciprocal concessions in Germany. We find that such agreements between employers and employees commonly fail to achieve their primary objective to...

Even though the 2008/09 economic crisis had only minor employment effects on the German labor market, it might have affected firms’ further training and apprenticeship training behavior. From a theoretical point of view, the impact of the business cycle on firms’ training behaviour is...

The favourable employment records of the German economy during the crisis 2008/2009 is related to the pacts for employment and competitiveness concluded at the company level and characterized by concessions from both bargaining partners. In these pacts work councils agree to company-specific...

We examine the response of a large panel of German establishments to the crisis in terms of their job flows (changes in employment) and consequent worker flows (hires, separations and layoffs). We analyse the extent to which job flows and worker flows at the establishment level are...

To improve their competitiveness the companies aim to increase the funds available to finance the necessary investments. In order to reduce wage costs company-specific deviations from industry-level wage contracts are concluded. Company-level pacts between the management and the works council...

"The relationship between the dynamics of employment on the one side and hirings and separations on the other side is crucial for the dynamics of unemployment and the labour market response to recessions. Although the average level of hiring and separation is much lower in Germany than in the...

In our paper, we analyze the impact of German employment protection legislation on the firms’ employment adjustment patterns. We explore a reform of the Protection Against Dismissal Act (PADA) in 2004 that decreased the employment protection in small establishments and thus generated a...

‘Work sharing’ is a labour market instrument devised to distribute a reduced volume of work to the same (or similar) number of workers over a diminished period of working time in order to avoid redundancies. This fascinating and timely study presents the concept and history of work...

We use a simple non-parametric regression approach to measure the relationship between employment growth, hirings and separations in a large panel of German establishments over the period 1993--2009. Although it is often claimed that firms in Europe have less flexibility in their ability to hire...