The Impact of Airbnb on Local Labour Markets in the Hotel Industry in Germany

Abstract

Looking at “the sharing economy”, the paper tackles its impact on employment, in the context of traditional businesses being challenged by innovative business models. The focus is on the way Airbnb, a major sharing economy player in the tourism industry, affects local labour markets. I am looking at 20 German cities and check how the presence of Airbnb impacts the hotel industry workers. Researching the period 2010 - 2014 and knowing Airbnb started their business in Germany in 2012, I investigate whether there are changes in the number of employees in the two time periods for two groups of cities, one with high Airbnb penetration and one with lower Airbnb penetration. Then I look at changes in employment type and wage effects. The results show that both employment and employment type are stable, no significant changes occurring after 2012. A third hypothesis regards wages in the hotel industry. Using a difference in difference strategy, with Airbnb as treatment, I estimate a small negative effect on daily wages for cities in which Airbnb presence is higher and after 2012 – from 2% to 6% lower daily wages. The effect is slightly higher for small medium entities and for full-time workers.

Keywords: sharing economy, Airbnb, labour, labour markets, hotels, hotel industry, labour economics, workers, digitalization