A second caveat relates to the definition of the STW take-up variable in terms of the number of participating workers rather than the number of full-time equivalent participants. A bias in the country-specific estimates of the impact of short-time working may thus be introduced to the extent that the average reduction in working time, as a result of short-time work, differs across countries. More specifically, the estimated jobs impact is likely to be underestimated in countries where the average reduction in working time per worker is relatively large (e.g. in countries where short-time work tends to take the form of temporary layoffs such as Finland and Norway) and overestimated in countries where the average reduction in working time is relatively small (e.g. Germany and Japan).