 |
 |
|
||||
           |
ECONOMY | FEBRUARY 23, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 8 |
|---|---|---|
Less Work, More Workers? France hopes to reduce unemployment by a new law that could weaken its global competitiveness By JAMES L. GRAFF
Jean-Marc Ayrault, president of the parliamentary socialists, pronounced the measure the "greatest social law that the Republic has ever known." The Conseil National du Patronat Francais, an employers' organization, retorted bluntly that it would "de-motivate and disorganize companies, harm the purchasing power of employees and cost the taxpayer dearly." The government's hope, of course, is that this legislation will create more jobs and alleviate France's unemployment rate of 12.2%, one of the highest of the world's major economies.But few economists believe that cutting the work week will have the desired effect. "Unemployment is totally unrelated to the length of the work week," argues Pierre Jacquet, deputy director of the French Institute of International Relations in Paris. And reducing work hours without decreasing the wages employees receive--or increasing productivity--will only make French firms less competitive in global markets. "What France needs," says Jean-Paul Fitoussi, president of Economic Observatory Fitoussi, "is systemic reform." French Economics Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn insists that much needed modernization will result from the work week initiative. Speaking just after the vote, he said that the government's push for a shortened work week is not "an atypical preference," but a response to France's "particularly alarming job shortage." Strauss-Kahn suggested that part of the government's "economically and socially just answer" to massive unemployment is to encourage French companies to find better ways of weathering market dips than simply laying off workers. "Employers have to stop measuring their performance in terms of savings in manpower," he said. Some of that intent is discernible, if only barely, in the legislation. Despite the opposition of labor unions, for instance, it will allow management and labor to hash out on their own the question of whether particular firms or sectors can average out total working hours on an annual basis, rather than weekly or monthly. But government action may not be the best way to reform the labor market. The Netherlands, where the unemployment rate is less than half that of France, began a process in 1982 of shortening the work week to 36 hours in some sectors. But the change came through direct negotiations between employer and employee groups, accompanied by iron-clad agreements to slow wage hikes. "You shouldn't try to realize this by imposing laws," counsels Nico Klene, chief domestic economist for Amsterdam-based ABN Amro. Yet, as the predictably partisan reaction to the new law indicates, such direct negotiations could be tortuous in a country as frustrated by protracted mass unemployment as France. --With Reporting by Bruce Crumley /Paris |
||
time-webmaster@pathfinder.com |
||
f work is a quiche and some people aren't getting any, why not
divide it into smaller pieces? In line with that apparently
unassailable slice of Cartesian logic, the Socialist-led French
National Assembly last week voted 316-254 to adopt controversial
legislation to reduce the standard French work week from 39
hours to just 35. As the long-promised centerpiece of Prime
Minister Lionel Jospin's assault on his country's entrenched
unemployment problem, the law would require firms with more than
20 employees to go to the shorter work week by the year 2000.
Smaller companies have until 2002.