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Annualised Hours Contracts: The Way Forward in Labour Market Flexibility?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

David N.F. Bell  and
Robert A. Hart
David N.F. Bell*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Stirling
Robert A. Hart*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Stirling
*
e-mails: [email protected] or [email protected]
e-mails: [email protected] or [email protected]
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Abstract

Under annualised hours' contracts (AHCs), workers and management agree to the length and scheduling of working hours over a 12-month period. Such contracts have been widely seen as a potentially important way of achieving greater labour market flexibility and enhanced efficiency in work organisation. There exists very little empirical work on these contracts and this study is intended to provide insights into their British labour market role and potential. Especially for workers who are not in management or a profession, the costs of switching to AHCs are substantial. The enterprises that are likely to gain from the switch are those that (a) experience significant fluctuations in output/service demand and (b) desire to utilise plant and space more intensively over the calendar year. In this latter respect, plants incorporating complex shift operations are particularly associated with AHCs.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 185 , July 2003 , pp. 64 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

∗

This project was funded by the ESRC (ESRC grant R 000 22 3442). Elizabeth Roberts provided excellent research assistance. We thank a referee for a number of very helpful comments. We are also grateful to Julian Dowsell (Office for National Statistics) for supplying us with detailed manufacturing output data. This paper is based on a fuller report entitled Annualised hours contracts (Bell and Hart, 2002). The authors would be happy to supply a copy on request.

References

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