  In recent years, it has been debated whether a reduction in working hours
would be a viable solution to tackle the unemployment caused by technological
change. The improvement of existing production technology is gradually being
seen to reduce labor demand. Although this debate has been at the forefront for
many decades, the high and persistent unemployment encountered in the European
Union has renewed interest in implementing this policy in order to increase
employment. According to advocates of reducing working hours, this policy will
increase the number of workers needed during the production process, increasing
employment. However, the contradiction expressed by advocates of working time
reduction is that the increase in labor costs will lead to a reduction in
business activity and ultimately to a reduction in demand for human resources.
In this article, we will attempt to answer the question of whether reducing
working hours is a way of countering the potential decline in employment due to
technological change. In order to answer this question, the aforementioned
conflicting views will be examined. As we will see during our statistical
examination of the existing empirical studies, the reduction of working time
does not lead to increased employment and cannot be seen as a solution to the
long-lasting unemployment.
