More than 40 per cent of jobseekers are working whilst remaining registered with Pôle Emploi; they are on reduced working hours. The effect of reduced working hours on a return to sustainable employment is, at first glance, ambiguous. On the one hand, reduced working hours enable jobseekers to maintain and develop their skills, and to expand their professional network. On the other hand, reduced working hours reduce the time jobseekers can devote to looking for long-term employment. Furthermore, if the job under reduced working hours is below the jobseeker’s qualifications, the positive effect on skills does not apply.
Existing evaluations do indeed conclude that the effects of reduced working hours are ambiguous, both based on French data (Granier and Joutard, 1999; Fremigacci and Terracol, 2013) and European data (Kyyra, 2010; Caliendo, Künn and Uhlendorff, 2012). The main difficulty with these evaluations lies in constructing a credible counterfactual for the trajectories of jobseekers on reduced working hours. Comparing jobseekers who opt for reduced working hours with those who are not working whilst registered with Pôle Emploi is not satisfactory. A jobseeker’s decision to take up reduced working hours depends on their individual characteristics, whilst these same characteristics also determine their access to sustainable employment.
