On the occasion of the OECD High Level Policy Forum on Migration taking place on December 1 and 2 2014, Secretary General Angel Gurria congratulates President Obama on taking action to address the unsustainable situation of undocumented immigrants.

The Netherlands should increase support for workers suffering from mental health issues and their employers and tackle the continued social stigma and limited knowledge around such illnesses, according to a new OECD report.

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

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 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

We therefore need a “copernician” change in our approach to the growth – inequality nexus: let’s not think growth first, and inequality thereafter but let’s consider both of them, together, in their circularity. In other words, let’s think “Inclusive Growth”, right from the start, and let’s make it another touchstone of our efforts and complement the Pittsburgh tryptic of strong, sustainable and balanced growth!

Health and employment services should intervene earlier, involve key stakeholders and ensure they work together in order to help people with mental-health issues find work and stay in a job, according to a new OECD report.

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.

Education systems have made major strides to close gender gaps in student performance but girls and boys remain deeply divided in career choices, which are being made much earlier than commonly thought, according to a new OECD report.

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.

The project provided recommendations to the city of Medellin and Antioquia to support the development of the local economy and includes a focus on how the innovative environment can be strengthened to support inclusion, entrepreneurship, SME, and local developmentto and how to better coordinate and integrate its policies with the national level.

Structural reforms and income distribution

The OECD’s Annual Meeting at Ministerial Level reinforced member governments’ support across a broad range of key OECD work.

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 generally improving in OECD countries. However, employment is still growing too slowly in the OECD area to close the jobs gap induced by the crisis by the end of 2016.

This report delivers evidence-based and practical recommendations on how to better support employment and economic development in Israel. Based on sub-national data analysis, it provides a comparative framework to understand the role of the local level in contributing to more and better quality jobs.

OECD countries are seeing a trend away from traditional employment towards part-time and temporary work and self-employment. However, there are concerns that part-time and temporary work are contributing to inequality and poverty. Policy needs to focus on ensuring that these "non-traditional" jobs are stepping stones to better jobs, not dead ends.

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.

The work will seek to identify good practices for employer engagement in the areas of both developing and utilising skills, including setting up innovative workplace learning methods, designing effective employer partnerships with the employment and training system as well as financing mechanisms for employer-led training, including how best to reach SMEs.

Austria needs to do more to help people with mental health problems find a job or stay in the workplace, according to a new OECD report. A more comprehensive approach would help employees and firms alike: mental health issues are estimated to cost the Austrian economy around 3.6% of GDP every year in lost productivity, health care and out-of-work benefits.

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

Improving school-to-work transitions and ensuring better career opportunities for youth after labour market entrance are common goals in emerging and advanced economies as they can contribute to raising the productive potential of the economy and to increasing social cohesion. However, the challenges faced in achieving these objectives and the policies required vary between emerging and advanced economies.

The potential for automation is limited when it comes to social skills, which is why social skills are increasingly rewarded in the labour market. Technological change is shaping the future of work through, in part, a skill-biased effect on employment.

On 14-15 January 2016 the OECD will host a Ministerial meeting on Labour and Employment, and a Policy Forum on the Future of Work.

The OECD and the Italian government are stepping up cooperation to ensure effective implementation of local development strategies to boost jobs, encourage entrepreneurship and increase social inclusion. An agreement, to be signed in Rome on 1 December 2015, will renew the mandate of the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development and establish a satellite office in Venice.

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.

The recent mental health reform is an important step towards better services for people with mental ill-health, but Australia needs to do more to help people with mild to moderate mental health issues at and into work, according to a new OECD report.

More equal access to employment services and better co-ordination between the government and social partners could help disadvantaged laid-off workers get back into employment, according to a new OECD report.

This work addresses the role of global value chains (GVCs), workforce skills, ICT, innovation and industry structure in explaining employment levels of routine and non-routine occupations. The analysis encompasses 28 OECD countries over the period 2000-2011.

OECD Employment and Labour Ministers meeting in Paris have underlined their commitment to boosting employment, particularly for young people and the long-term unemployed, tackling labour market inequalities and helping people with mental health issues find and stay in work.

OECD Employment and Labour Ministers meeting in Paris have underlined their commitment to boosting employment, particularly for young people and the long-term unemployed, tackling labour market inequalities and helping people with mental health issues find and stay in work.

Investing in Youth in Tunisia most important than ever, and the still relevance of the last Investing in Youth review 2014.

Lithuania needs to boost job creation and reduce labour costs in order to help more young people into work, according to a new OECD report.

Regional disparities in the supply and demand of skills do exists in many OECD countries. Local level actors need to be equipped with the right tools and capacities to develop innovative employment and job creation strategies tailored to their local conditions.

Discussion on how technology helps measuring skills shortages in real time

Australia should provide early access to more intensive employment services for disadvantaged laid-off workers to help them find a new job more quickly, according to a new OECD report.

The purpose of the seminar is to provide the practical information about how to implement SIBs in Poland using international experiences. The seminar is addressed to the potential applicants interested in the implementation of SIB within the call for proposals planned to be launched by the Ministry of Economic Development.

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.

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.

Despite unprecedented progress over the past century, gender gaps in the labour market persist throughout the world and are especially marked in emerging economies. While the quantity of jobs held by women has increased in many countries, female workers continue to have worse jobs than men.

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.

Despite unprecedented progress over the past century, gender gaps in the labour market persist throughout the emerging world and are accompanied by important skill gaps. Women tend to perform worse in STEM subjects, have lower financial literacy and business knowledge than men. The OECD Employment Outlook 2016 paints an up-to-date picture of gender gaps in 16 emerging economies and outlines a comprehensive set of policy recommendations.

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.

OECD employment rate increases further to 66.9% in the second quarter of 2016

OECD unemployment rate stable at 6.3% in September 2016

OECD unemployment rate down to 6.2% in October 2016

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