Abstract

Disentangling the simultaneous effects of the new open-ended contracts with reduced firing costs from those of the hiring subsidy introduced by Jobs Act is a very difficult task, since the two policies were implemented within a short time of each other. Instead, studying the possible interaction is more meaningful. The aim of this research is to evaluate the combined effect of these policies on Newly employees in Italy. Specifically, Newly employees measures the share of people in the current job for 12 months or less, in total employment). Aggregate data and the Synthetic control method were employed to analyse a panel dataset derived from the Eurostat database for Italy and for a selected set of European countries observed over the period 2002−2022.