Bertil Holmlund () and Donald Storrie
Additional contact information
Bertil Holmlund: Department of Economics, Postal: Uppsala University, P.O. Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Donald Storrie: CELMS, Postal: Department of Economics, Göteborg University, Box 640, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden
Abstract: Sweden has experienced a substantial increase in temporary work over the 1990s, with most of the rise occurring during a severe macroeconomic recession with mass unemployment. By the early 1990s, workers on fixed-term contracts accounted for 10 percent of the number of employees; by the end of the decade they accounted for 16 percent. The paper presents the Swedish institutional setting, documents basic stylised facts about fixed-term contracts, and discusses the causes of their increased prevalence. Our analysis reveals that open-ended and temporary employment exhibit strikingly different cyclical behaviour with temporary employment being more volatile. A recession is associated with an initial decline in temporary employment followed by a sharp rise from the trough to the end of the recession. We argue that the severe recession of the 1990s is a major factor behind the rise in temporary work in Sweden. Adverse macroeconomic conditions make firms more prone to offer fixed-term contracts and workers more willing to accept them.
Keywords: Temporary jobs; Labour market dynamics; Unemployment
34 pages, December 4, 2001
Full text files
2002wp1.pdf
Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Ulrika Öjdeby ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().
RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2002_001This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:17:37.