Working Time Accounts and Turnover*

Working time accounts are essentially bookkeeping tools that allow firms to smooth their demand for hours employed. Descriptive literature suggests working can reduce layoffs and inhibit increases in unemployment during recessions. In a model of optimal labor demand, I show do not necessarily guarantee fewer at the firm level. Layoffs fall or rise depending on whether meets an economic downturn with surplus deficit hours, how productive is. On aggregate expected terms, however, job destruction.