"In the IAB establishment panel of 1993 and 1996 information is collected concerning the decision to use certain forms of working hours and the intensity of their use. This includes questions regarding shift work and weekend work, which are the key forms of decoupling working time and operating...

"Since 1993 the IAB has maintained a representative information system of the demand side of the labour market in the form of its establishment panel for western Germany. With the inclusion of the new federal states in 1996, the formation of the IAB panel was completed in the whole of Germany....

"An outstanding significance for labour market and employment policy is attached to the expansion of part-time employment, whether it is in the sense of a defensive strategy to redistribute the available volume of working hours or in the context of an active, more growth-orientated labour market...

"The IAB Establishment Panel was launched to obtain information on the demand side of the labor market. This data meets two requirements: providing high quality data for the scientific aims and having an information system for policy makers and practitioners. As it started in 1993 a rich data...