The digital revolution, globalisation and demographic changes are transforming labour markets at a time when policy makers are also struggling with slow productivity and wage growth and high levels of income inequality. The new OECD Jobs Strategy provides a comprehensive framework and policy recommendations to help countries address these challenges.

The German standard VAT rate is 19.0%, which is close to the OECD average. The average VAT/GST¹ standard rate in the OECD was 19.3% as of 1 January 2019. The previous standard VAT rate in Germany was 16% in 2006. It changed to the current level in 2007. Germany applies a reduced rate of 7% to a number of goods and services.

In Germany, more jobs are at a high risk of automation or a significant risk of change than in the OECD on average. The higher risk of automatability is in part the result of the large manufacturing sector in Germany. Low-skilled jobs with routine tasks are generally at a higher risk of automation than high-skilled jobs with cognitive tasks.

Just under one in four adults in Germany are obese. As a result, Germans live on average 2.6 years less due to overweight. Overweight accounts for 10.7% of health expenditure one of the largest rates of all countries analysed. Labour market outputs are lower due to overweight by the equivalent of 1 m full time workers per year. Combined, this means that overweight reduces Germany’s GDP by 3.0%.

This country note explains how Germany taxes energy use. The note shows the distribution of effective energy tax rates across all domestic energy use. It also details the country-specific assumptions made when calculating effective energy tax rates and matching tax rates to the corresponding energy base.

Across the OECD, Germany is among the top five spenders on health care, both as a proportion of GDP (11.2%) and per person (USD 5,986). Health spending is projected to further increase to reach 12.3% of GDP by 2030. With such high level of spending, Germany guarantees good access to health care services.

Renten auf einen Blick 2019: Wie steht DEUTSCHLAND im Vergleich da?

Key findings for Germany from the report "Pensions at a Glance 2019"

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Germany increased by 0.6 percentage points from 37.6% in 2017 to 38.2% in 2018. The corresponding figure for the OECD average was a slight increase of 0.1 percentage point from 34.2% to 34.3% over the same period.

The tax wedge for the average single worker in Germany decreased by 0.1 percentage points from 49.5 in 2018 to 49.4 in 2019. The OECD average tax wedge in 2019 was 36.0 (2018, 36.1). In 2019 Germany had the 2nd highest tax wedge among the 36 OECD member countries, occupying the same position in 2018.

DELSA-G20 Country Note Indonesia-en

The Institute for Competitiveness India, the National Skill Development Corporation India and the OECD LEED Programme in collaboration with the ILO are joining forces to discuss local skills strategies for job-rich and inclusive growth in India.

The Regional Growth Core Schönefelder Kreuz and the Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau in partnership with the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development Programme (LEED) are working on defining and collecting measurable indicators at the regional/ local level that can inform over time of transition to low-carbon economic and industrial activities.

This paper discusses the results of the 2011-2012 OECD LEED study of measuring green growth in the Benelux countries (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg). The study paid particular attention to the challenges of measuring the transition to a low-carbon economy in cross-border areas as they have additional levels of complexity when it comes to measuring and monitoring their low-carbon transition.

As part of the OECD LEED project on university support for entrepreneurship in eastern Germany, undertaken in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Regional Development, this handbook presents highlights of results of a series of case studies and a university survey.

This LEED project aims to to define key indicators of area-based transition to a low-carbon economy. The objective is to define measurable indicators at regional/local level that can inform over time of transition to low-carbon economic and industrial activities.

Switzerland has high employment rates and low unemployment. The overall employment rate remained stable since the start of the crisis and stands at 79% (first quarter of 2014), the second highest in the OECD after Iceland, well above the OECD average of 65.6%. As for unemployment, among OECD countries only Japan, Korea, and Norway have lower unemployment rates.

Unemployment rose substantially in the Slovak Republic as a result of the crisis and has only declined slowly since reaching a peak of 14.8% of the labour force in early 2010. At 13.3% in August 2014, the unemployment rate remains one of the highest among developed countries and is twice as high as the OECD average.

Hungary was hit harder by the global crisis than most OECD countries. Unemployment reached record levels at the peak of the crisis but has since recovered to its pre-crisis level around the current OECD average of 8%.

Poland’s employment rate at 61% (Q2 2014) remains well below the OECD average but, in contrast to many other countries, it has increased slowly since the onset of the economic crisis (from 57.9% in Q1 2007).

India’s economic growth has slowed since 2010 in the aftermath of the global crisis, but growth is expected to pick up according to the May 2014 projections of the OECD Economic Outlook. The unemployment rate was 3.6% in 2012 in India, lower than in 2006 (4.4%) before the onset of the global financial crisis.

The South African labour market continues to perform poorly compared to OECD and other G20 countries, and the global financial crisis appears to have worsened the situation.

The unemployment rate in Indonesia continues to trend downwards. At 5.7% in Q1 2014, Indonesia’s unemployment rate is considerably below the levels observed in 2007 (above 9%). It is also now well below the OECD average of 7.4%.

The unemployment rate in Brazil continues its downward trend, despite a slowdown in GDP growth. At 4.9% (for urban areas), Brazil’s unemployment rate is considerably below the OECD average of 7.4%.

Reducing income inequality would boost economic growth, according to new OECD analysis. This work finds that countries with lower income inequality grow faster than those with higher inequality.

The WISE database provides a “one-stop” location to build up a statistical snapshot of skills development for each country. The database contains 64 indicators in five broad areas: contextual factors; skill acquisition; skill requirements; skill mismatch; and economic and social outcomes

Ireland was hit hard by the financial crisis and the labour market has yet to fully mend. The unemployment rate more than tripled from 4.6% in Q1 2007 to its peak of 15.1% in Q4 2011.

At 75%, the employment rate in New Zealand is the third highest among OECD countries and has been only marginally affected by the recent economic crisis.

Labour market conditions are improving in many OECD countries but the recovery from the recent economic crisis remains very uneven. Employment is still growing too slowly in the OECD area to close the jobs gap induced by the crisis, even by the end of 2016. Consequently, unemployment for the OECD as a whole is projected to continue its slow decline, reaching 6.6% by the end of 2016.

In 2010, the G20 called for the development of a set of internationally comparable indicators of skills for employment and productivity for Low-Income Countries (LIC) as part of its Multi-Year Action Plan on Development. To respond to this call, the OECD has established the World Indicators of Skills for Employment (WISE) database in close collaboration with the World Bank, ETF, ILO and UNESCO

Being able to directly measure all the above aspects would be extremely useful but economists and analysts usually face severe data limitations (e.g. small sample size, data comparability, measurement error etc.) and are, in many instances, forced to use second-best proxies to describe skills and build indicators.

OECD analyses have begun to understand the relationship between digitalisation, jobs and skills, the magnitude of potential job substitution due to technological change, the relationship between globalisation and wage polarisation, as well as the changes to the organisation of work.

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 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.

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.

Kazakhstan’s strong economic growth since the 2000s has helped the country sharply improve people’s living standards, reduce poverty and income inequalities, and boost employment. Kazakhstan should now focus on improving employment opportunities for vulnerable people.

OECD CLIs point to stable growth momentum in the OECD area

Policy Brief on the Future of Work: Putting faces to the jobs at risk of automation

The Summer Academy, a three-year project 2018-2020, provides training for policy makers and representatives of cultural and creative industries (CCIs). The first edition will take place 11-15 June 2018 in Trento and Bolzano, Italy. The final conference on Friday 15 June is open to local as well as to national and international stakeholders interested in the event themes, upon registration.

Indonesia has improved its macro-economic and structural policies over the last 15 years. Its economy, with strong and stable growth rates of 5–6.6%, is catching up with other countries in the region and allowing Indonesia to focus on its development agenda.

This OECD Regulatory Policy Working Paper presents the methodology, key results and statistical analysis of the 2015 Indicators of Regulatory Policy and Governance (iREG) to complement the OECD Regulatory Policy Outlook 2015.

Indicators and database Governance 2018

Economy wide PMR Indicators (July 2019)

Sectoral PMR Indicators (July 2019)

OECD World Bank Economy wide PMR Indicators

OECD WBG Sector Indicators in Excel

Conference to exchange information on the need for and experience with governance innovation in the context of different sectors and different countries, both within and outside of the OECD, and to inform future OECD work.

OECD work on the independence of regulators and how to protect them from undue influence. Information includes new data from a survey of 48 regulators across the world.

OECD Network Sector Regulation Indicators

France should intensify its efforts to combat the bribery of foreign public officials. Only five convictions – of which one, under appeal, involves a company – have been handed down in twelve years.