paper Youth: Investing in Skills to Foster Youth Employability

Labour market integration of immigrants in Switzerland is generally successful: three quarters of immigrants in Switzerland are in employment – more than in any other OECD country

Australia’s labour market continues to perform well in comparison with other major developed countries. The unemployment rate, at 5.1% in May 2012, is among the lowest in the OECD.

The recovery of the Canadian labour market is well under way. The unemployment rate (ILO definition) fell by more than one percentage point to 7.2% in June 2012, since peaking at 8.5% in the third quarter of 2009.

The German labour market recovered very quickly from the 2008-09 economic crisis and unemployment continued its long-run structural decline in 2010 and 2011.

Italy has been hit hard by the crisis and unemployment may rise further. The recent recession hit the Italian economy hard with the country experiencing a large fall in GDP at the height of the crisis in 2009

The labour market recovery in Japan began strongly but has weakened since.

The Korean labour market continues to perform well after a quick recovery from the global economic crisis. Korea’s unemployment rate was 3.2% in May 2012, 0.2% point lower than a year earlier, and nearly down to its pre-crisis level of 3.1%.

Mexico has experienced a stronger economic recovery than most other OECD countries accompanied by strong employment growth.

Despite some decline in the number of registered unemployed in June, high levels of unemployment in Spain are set to persist in the short-run, given its weak economic growth prospects.

The UK economy has been broadly flat over the past two years. Employment has risen slightly, while the unemployment rate has stayed close to 8%. Projections in the 2012 OECD Employment Outlook foresee some increase in the unemployment rate that could even reach 9% in 2013.

The US labour market continues its slow recovery from the 2008-09 recession, but the unemployment rate remains significantly higher than before the financial crisis

Skills and educational development for inclusive and sustainable growth are becoming significant drivers in OECD countries.

Australia’s labour market reforms over the past 15 years have boosted employment and cut welfare benefit dependency.

The euro area crisis finds its roots in the credit booms seen in many countries following the introduction of the euro in 1999. Easy credit led to strong growth in a range of sectors, notably housing, as well as higher levels of public spending. Inflation in these over-heating economies was higher than the euro area as a whole. Rising prices led to rising costs and a loss of international competitiveness.

The well performing labour market has delivered low unemployment and relatively stable wage developments.

Germany is one of the OECD countries with the lowest barriers to immigration for high-skilled workers. However, long-term labour migration is low in comparison with other countries.

Young people are being excluded from economic life by a combination of joblessness and barriers to the creation of start-ups. Unleashing the energy, entrepreneurial spirit and technological genius of the young is not just a moral imperative, but an economic necessity.

More than five years into an economic crisis which has taken on several names–from subprime crisis and financial crisis to great recession–no term accurately depicts the fundamental result of this economic turbulence: people facing hardship.

OECD governments have committed to stepping up their efforts to tackle high youth unemployment and strengthen their education systems to better prepare young people for the world of work.

Unemployment in OECD countries will remain high through 2014, with young people and the low-skilled hit hardest, according to a new OECD report.

Ireland’s economy is now showing encouraging signs of recovery from the financial crisis, but more must be done to reinvigorate growth and create the jobs that will get the country back to full health, according to the OECD.

Endorsing the OECD’s Action Plan for Youth at the OECD’s annual Ministerial Meeting in Paris in May 2013, ministers underlined the need to focus attention on the most disadvantaged youth.

Spain has taken courageous steps to strengthen its labour market. Recent reforms have helped create jobs and should further boost competitiveness and employment in the years to come. But additional efforts are needed to boost competition in product markets and to improve assistance to job seekers, particularly young people, according to a new OECD report.

This report on seeks to provide guidance on the design and delivery of a Youth Guarantee in Ireland based on the experience of other countries in designing guarantees or other comprehensive policy packages to help youth find productive and rewarding employment.

This conference on 9 April 2014 will provide an opportunity for a mutual sharing of good practice in fostering the better insertion of youth into the labour market through the development of quality apprenticeships. It would also seek to foster a greater commitment by countries to take action to introduce or strengthen apprenticeship initiatives and to take stock of the progress achieved.

This report examines the sustainability of social institutions and their ability to absorb and cope with short-term shocks and longer-term trends by providing risk sharing and expenditure smoothing, focusing on pension, health care and unemployment insurance schemes.

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%.

Joint Seminar on "Minimum Wages – Impacts and Institutional Processes"

The G20 needs to go structural, social, and green! With fiscal and monetary policy room nearly exhausted, structural reforms are the best choices, sometimes the only choice. The OECD battle cry in this regard has been unchanged since 2008: “go structural!”.

OECD Development Centre, ECLAC and CAF to launch their joint Latin American Economic Outlook 2015 at the XXIV Ibero-American Summit on Tuesday 9 December 2014

The 2014 edition of the OECD Pensions Outlook explores the crucial and far-reaching challenges that pension systems are currently facing. This report was released at a launch event in London on 8 December 2014.

Latin America’s GDP growth rate has slowed down in 2014, dropping below 1.5%. This is the first time in a decade that the region grows less than the OECD average, according to the OECD Development Centre, the Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean and the development bank for Latin America. Given the projections in the past weeks, any recovery in 2015 is likely to be challenging.

The United Kingdom’s economy is projected to expand this year and next, but challenges remain to boost productivity and make future growth more inclusive, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey.

This paper presents an overview of the situation of youth in OECD countries since the financial crisis, describing the characteristics and living conditions of young NEETs. It provides data on income-support policies for young people, and summarises available evidence on the impact of interventions that aim at improving the social, education and employment situation of the most disadvantaged youth.

Tunisia has made great strides since 2011 towards greater inclusivity and fairness in its political system, based on the rule of law, transparency and good governance.

Encouraging more people to work later in life would help Poland meet the challenges of a rapidly ageing population. The percentage of old to younger groups (defined as share of over 65s to people aged 20-64) is projected to nearly triple from 22% in 2012 to 63% in 2050, according to a new OECD report.

Structural reforms and income distribution

At Nestlé, we have a long tradition of recruiting young people directly from schools or universities. We invest in them, build their capabilities and develop their professional career. We do so while embracing diversity of cultures, traditions and opinions.

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.

The jobs recovery is slowly gathering pace, but employment will remain well below pre-crisis levels in many countries, especially in Europe, through to the end of 2016, according to a new OECD report.

As the first edition of “Youth Skills day” unfolds, about 40 million youth aged 15-29 in OECD countries are either looking for work or entirely disconnected from the labour market and from education and training.