Ken Hanly asked: >Do you have the figures? Why is this the case do u think? I guess my remark >about the new Russian labor law is true though. The figures are in Labour Force Update, Hours of Work, Summer 1997 (StatsCan) and Report of the Advisory Group on Working Time and the Distribution of Work December 1994 (HRDC). See also the chapter by Lars Osberg in the Report of the Advisory Committee on the Changing Workplace, HRDC, 1997. The interpretation of the figures is mine although it borrows from analysis by a lot of other people. I would attribute much of the destandardization of working time to policy "loopholes" in the social security and employer-paid benefit tax structures and in labour standards legislation. Some of the usual suspect market factors that contribute to the destandardization of working time would include, on the labour demand side, lean production and just-in-time workforce management. On the labour supply side the contributing factors includes increased labour force participation of mothers of young children and students (more part-timers), and consumer culture and job loss fears (more overtime). There is some debate about to what extent the changes are driven by market supply factors, demand factors or by the policy regime. You can find most of the arguments -- including my own -- in Working Time: International trends, theory and policy perspectives, edited by Lonnie Golden and Deborah Figart, Routledge, 2000. My own view is that the supply, demand and policy factors are all mutually re-inforcing so it would be very difficult to separate them out. That is to say, the structure of payroll taxes gives employers perverse incentives to use the labour force in a polarized way (more part-time, more temp, more overtime) and polarization in turn creates economic barriers to ameliorating the perverse policy. The economic barriers, I should point out, are short term. A comprehensive clean up of the toxic policy loopholes would have a salutory effect on labour productivity in the medium and long run. Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
