The European Union should reform its legal labour migration policies to get its fair share of the global talent pool, according to a new report published by the OECD.

A more skilled population ahead: age or cohort effects? Evidence from PIAAC and the differences in policies approach.

The demand for soft skills is increasing, and recent evidence suggests that the supply does not seem to keep up. The benefits from further development of these skills go beyond better labour market outcomes, as soft skills have been shown to contribute to overall well-being.

Today, the OECD publishes "Skills Matter: Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills", the Second International Report for the Survey of Adults Skills, which covers a further nine countries and sub-national entities – Chile, Greece, Indonesia (Jakarta), Israel, Lithuania, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia and Turkey– that collected data in 2014-15.

This OECD report was developed in collaboration with the United States, Mexico and Canada, for consideration by the three Leaders in the context of the 2016 North American Leaders Summit.

Although Lithuania’s growth has been impressive, inequality is high, the risk of poverty is one of the highest of European countries, and life expectancy is comparatively low and strongly dependent on socio-economic background.

In 2015 the Lithuanian government launched an ambitious Social Model reform agenda aimed at balancing flexibility of the labour market and security provided through the system of social protection.

This chapter analyses how skills are used at work, why skills use matters for workers and economies and its key determinants. It draws on data for the 28 OECD countries participating in the Survey of Adult Skills.

Denmark was hit harder by the global financial crisis than its neighbouring countries and the OECD area, but is now slowly recovering. In the first quarter of 2016, the employment rate was still 4.8 percentage points lower than before the GFC with only minor improvement since 2013.

The recently published Second International Report for the Survey of Adults Skills looks in detail at the extent to which proficiency in literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments matters for the well-being of individuals and nations. The answer that emerges is clear: proficiency is positively linked to a number of important economic and social outcomes.

The labour market recovery in the Netherlands is lagging behind. As of the last quarter of 2015, the unemployment rate stood at 6.7%, just one percentage point lower than its cyclical peak and three percentage points higher from its level at the start of the global financial crisis. As a result of the sluggish recovery, the unemployment rate in the Netherlands is now slightly higher than that for the OECD as a whole.

Skill requirements are changing rapidly as a result of structural shifts. Workforce employability is essential to turn structural change into an opportunity for all. Education and training systems, labour markets, workers and workplaces will have to become more adaptable. A set of concrete actionable measures is proposed to improve the employability of each economy’s workforce.

The Netherlands should improve its policies to attract and retain highly skilled migrants in order to address labour shortages and strengthen its position as a knowledge-based economy, according to a new OECD report.

The OECD has just released a new working paper by Thor Berger and Carl Frey which provides a systematic overview of the literature examining the impact of digitalisation on labour markets. The paper highlights some well-known as well as some lesser-known facts about digitalisation, deindustrialisation and the future of work.

In a majority of OECD countries, GDP growth over the past three decades has been associated with growing income disparities.

Reforms that boost growth by enhancing economic flexibility often meet strong opposition related to concerns that they may imply adverse consequences for categories of workers. This study investigates how making product or labour market regulation more flexible changes workers’ risks of moving out of employment and jobless people’s chances of becoming employed.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are profoundly changing the skill profile of jobs. Skill development policies need to be overhauled to reduce the risk of increased unemployment and growing inequality.

This document describes and discusses a new supply side framework that quantifies the impact of structural reforms on per capita income in OECD countries.

Malaysia has sustained over four decades of rapid, inclusive growth, reducing its dependence on agriculture and commodity exports to become a more diversified, modern and open economy.

OECD Global Network of Schools of Government provides direct access to OECD governance expertise and enables exchange of schools’ experiences and good practices in ensuring that public sector employees have the skills and competencies to address current and future priorities.

This report has been elaborated by the OECD in very close collaboration with the Portuguese government and, in particular, the Ministry of Labour. A final version was submitted to the government in late December 2016 and it is expected to be released in Lisbon on the 19th of January 2017.

Comprehensive reforms to Portugal’s labour market between 2011 and 2015 have helped create jobs and reduce the country’s high unemployment rate but important challenges remain, according to a new OECD report.

Australia’s strong economy has helped drive a healthy job market. But to avoid a future shortage of labour as the population ages, further efforts are needed to help older women, indigenous Australians and mothers with young children into work, according to a new OECD report.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are changing profoundly the skill profile of jobs. To thrive in the digital economy, ICT skills will not be enough and other complementary skills will be needed, ranging from good literacy and numeracy skills through to the right socio-emotional skills to work collaboratively and flexibly.

New Zealand should extend access to income support and introduce a longer minimum notice period for all workers to help disadvantaged laid-off workers find a new job and maintain their job quality and living standards, according to a new OECD report.

Brazil’s old-age pensions have reduced old-age poverty below OECD levels, but pension expenditures of 8.2% of GDP are expected to rise rapidly as the population ages. A pension reform is necessary to ensure the financial sustainability of the system.

Lending volumes and credit conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have gradually improved, according to a new report from the OECD, but demand-side obstacles such as a lack of financial knowledge are contributing to holding back a stronger recovery.

The talk of the town this year has truly been the so-called fourth industrial revolution–and rightly so. Digitalisation causes an increasing interconnectivity of people, production and processes. Combined with the rapid development in artificial intelligence, self-learning machines and robot technology it heralds a new time of revolutionary technological progress.

Recent debates of Basic Income proposals shine a useful spotlight on the challenges that traditional forms of income support are increasingly facing, and highlight gaps in social provisions that largely depend on income or employment status. Reforms towards more universal income support would need to be introduced in stages, requiring a parallel debate on how to finance a more equal sharing of the benefits of economic growth.

Japan should step up efforts to improve young people’s job prospects and reduce the share of 15-29 year-olds who are not in employment, education or training (the “NEETs”), according to a new OECD report.

The way businesses operate is rapidly changing. A strong online presence and tailored services are crucially important to their global development. Together with the emergence of the on-demand economy the traditional employment relationship is therefore being replaced by a diversity of more detached, agile and adaptable forms of employment.

When it comes to labour and migration, global governance of almost any kind is missing. When it comes to labour, the International Labour Organization, which is the oldest among the institutions mentioned here, has little power and deals mostly with national labour rules.

The German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the OECD are jointly organising a High-Level Policy Forum on the New Jobs Strategy which will take place on 13 June 2017 in Berlin. The Forum will be hosted by Minister Andrea Nahles together with Secretary-General Angel Gurría.

The OECD LEED Trento Centre organised a working group session on "Cultural heritage as catalyst of local development " on Thursday, 22 June, 2017 - 12.30 to 15.30 in the context of ArtLab 17 in Milan.

The OECD was invited to assess key elements of the Second Irish Public Service Reform Plan (PSRP 2014-2016), with a view to informing future public service reform efforts in Ireland.

This policy brief discusses the possible impact of digitalisation on women and men, and proposes a range of policies to ensure that technological change supports a closing, and not a widening, of gender gaps.

One of the most persistent barriers to women’s success at work and to economic growth, unequal pay, will be actively challenged by a new global partnership, the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC).

Full and effective implementation of recent reforms, including the Jobs Act and the Good Schools reform, would help boost growth in Italy by improving people’s skills and ensuring their more effective use across the country, according to a new OECD report.

Women in the Middle East and North Africa are better educated and better skilled than ever, yet legal and social barriers mean the share of them in work is still the lowest in the world. Bringing family and labour laws into line with gender goals would enable more women to enter employment and would make MENA economies more competitive and inclusive, according to a new OECD report.

OECD CLIs point to stable growth momentum in the OECD area

Costa Rica enjoys relatively high life satisfaction levels, but should do more to develop a more inclusive and sustainable economy, according to a new OECD report.

This conference organised jointly by the OECD, Warwick University, the Work Foundation, and the Centre for Cities brought together stakeholders from national government departments, cities, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) as well as business, NGOs and research institutions to discuss the key challenges facing the United Kingdom in building more and better quality jobs

In a new report, the OECD says that France should modernise and strengthen the co-ordination of labour immigration in order to attract foreign talent and align itself more closely with the needs of the labour market.

Years after the start of the recession the situation of youth in the Italian labour market remains quite bleak. Nearly one in four young people in Italy are neither in employment, education, or training (NEETs) and many young people lack the right skills. Within this context, the government is introducing promising reforms to give young people a better start in the world of work.

Recent reforms of Italy’s education system (“Buona Scuola”), labour market (“Jobs Act”) and industrial policy (“Industria 4.0”) have clear synergies and could reduce worrying imbalances between the supply and demand of skills on the Italian labour market, according to the new OECD report Getting Skills Right: Italy.

Providing American seniors with better work incentives and opportunities will be crucial for the United States to meet the challenges of its rapidly ageing population. By 2028, more than one in five Americans will be aged 65 and over, up from fewer than one in six today, according to a new OECD report.

Korea’s economy has progressed rapidly over the past 40 years, catching up with the level of well-being in most OECD countries. It now needs to continue and speed up the reforms of its labour market in order to strengthen its social safety net, create better quality jobs and boost inclusive growth, according to a new OECD report.

Norway should step up its efforts to boost the job prospects of young people without upper-secondary qualification to further reduce the share of under-30 year-olds who are Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEETs), according to a new OECD report.

The OECD LEED Trento Centre is working with Italy and the Autonomous Province of Trento to strengthen capacities to develop and implement integrated strategies targeted at improving the quality of life and well-being of people and reversing demographic trends in ‘inner areas’ (sparsely populated areas and stranded communities isolated from large and medium-sized urban centres).

The OECD Trento Centre is undertaking a review (2017/2018) to identify the needs and priorities for policy improvement and to foster the exchange of experiences, the capitalisation of acquired know-how and the generation of new and fresh thinking in the Adriatic-Ionian macro-region.