Kostas Karamanis

Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Ioannina,

Hellenic Open University,

Greece

kkaraman@uoi.gr

The impact of flexible working at firm level. Evidence from Greek labor market

Christos Gogos

Department of Informatics and Telecommunications,

University of Ioannina,

Greece

cgogos@uoi.gr

Abstract. Global competition and the rise of structural unemployment during the 1980s and 1990s increased the demand for flexibility at labor markets. Since the early1990s, Greece following the directives of the European Union, gradually adopted reforms to ease the use of flexible forms of employment. This paper maps the recent evolution of flexible employment in Greece and makes an innovative empirical analysis of the employers' opinion about the impact of flexible working on their businesses during the crisis. The analysis is based upon a questionnaire through which the problem is investigated with the help of the statistical software R. To compare the sub-samples and in order to test any potential differences between them, we applied the Χ2 (chi square) analysis.  We used a sample of almost 1000 respondents, drawn from the Greek SME sector, during the period October – December 2018. The results of our research seem to confirm the related findings of earlier studies. Our descriptive analysis shows that the impact of flexible working forms on entrepreneurship in Greece is ambiguous. In particular, it is concluded that flexible working forms has not contributed to human resource management. On the contrary, it seems that flexible working can reduce labor and insurance costs.

Received: November, 2019

1st Revision: February, 2020

Accepted: May, 2020

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2020/13-2/1

JEL Classification: E24, J01, J21

Keywords: labor market, flexible forms of employment, entrepreneurship, economic crisis, Greece.