Living hours under pressure: Flexibility loopholes in the Danish IR-model

Associate Professors Anna Ilsøe, Trine Pernille Larsen and PhD-student Jonas Feldbo-Kolding have contributed to the journal Employee Relations by writing the article 'Living hours under pressure: Flexibility loopholes in the Danish IR-model'.

Their analysis shows that the de facto hourly wages have increased in industrial cleaning, retail, hotels and restaurants since the global financial crisis. This is in accordance with increasing minimum wage levels in the sector-level agreements. The majority of workers in all three sectors work part-time. Marginal part-timers – 15 hours or less per week – make up the largest group of workers. The de facto hourly wage for part-timers, including marginal part-timers, is relatively close to the sector average. However, the yearly job-related income is much lower for part-time than for full-time workers and much lower than the poverty threshold. Whereas the collective agreement in industrial cleaning includes a minimum floor of 15 weekly working hours – this is not the case in retail, hotels and restaurants. This creates a loophole in the latter two sectors that can be exploited by employers to gain wage flexibility through part-time work.

Anna Ilsøe, Trine Pernille Larsen and Jonas Feldbo-Kolding, Living hours under pressure: Flexibility loopholes in the Danish IR-model, Employee Relations, vol. 39, 2017.