This chapter provides an overview of recent labour market developments in OECD countries and short-term prospects. Despite some signs of a recovery in job growth, unemployment remains well above pre-crisis levels in many countries, although some further modest declines are projected over the rest of 2014 and in 2015. Moreover, an assessment of the available evidence suggests that the persistence of high levels of unemployment has been translated into a rise in structural unemployment in some countries, which will not be automatically reversed by a pick-up in economic growth. Given these developments, promoting aggregate demand should remain a key policy objective where the recovery has been less robust but accompanied by reinforced measures to combat rising structural unemployment. In particular, priority should be given to employment and training measures for the long-term unemployed who typically face significant barriers to finding work and are most likely to drop out of the labour force.