The employment and windfall effects of short-time work : evidence from Germany

I study the ramifications of the German short-time work (STW) scheme using novel administrative data on STW and drawing on evidence from establishment surveys that are linked to the administrative data. I show that, besides financial reasons, firms value and use STW because it allows them to hoard labor in a tight labor market. During the pandemic, I document a strong negative selection into STW based on measures of firm quality and productivity, a pattern not observed during the financial crisis. This selection pattern is explained by the differing types of crises and their impact on establishments. Adjusting for selection, I then investigate the employment effects of STW in the pandemic and find 3-4% higher employment levels for firms utilizing STW. This relationship, however, vanishes quickly after firms exit STW, a result driven by outflows among STW firms being initially lower, but being higher after the end of STW. Partly due to eased access rules, I additionally find that the policy's windfall effects, or deadweight losses, are large: While back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that up to half a million jobs were saved by STW in 2020, millions of jobs were supported in total, indicating an insufficient degree of targeting.