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OECD Employment Outlook 2020

Worker Security and the COVID-19 Crisis

image of OECD Employment Outlook 2020

The 2020 edition of the OECD Employment Outlook focuses on worker security and the COVID-19 crisis. Chapter 1 provides an initial assessment of the labour market consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting economic crisis. It also presents an overview of the emergency labour market and social policy measures implemented by OECD countries and discusses directions for further policy adaptation as countries move out of lockdown. Chapter 2 investigates the uneven access to unemployment benefits for workers in part-time and less stable jobs, which often accentuates the hardship they face in times of crisis, and discusses the difficult balance between work incentives and income security. Chapter 3 provides a comparative review of employment protection legislation (EPL) across OECD countries by developing a new version of the OECD's EPL indicators, which now include an improved assessment of regulations for collective redundancies, unfair dismissals and enforcement issues. Chapter 4 takes a fresh look at job polarisation, and in particular the hollowing out of jobs in middle-skill occupations. Finally, Chapter 5 examines the changing labour market outcomes for middle-educated vocational education and training graduates, whose labour market perspectives are challenged by the contraction of jobs in middle-skill occupations.

English Also available in: French

What is happening to middle-skill workers?

Driven by mega trends such as automation, ageing and globalisation, the share of middle-skilled jobs has been declining in the majority of OECD labour markets (a process also referred to as job polarisation). Middle-skill jobs are defined as occupations in the middle of the occupation-wage distribution. One little explored question is what is happening to the workers who have traditionally occupied these jobs? This chapter starts by examining whether the fall in the share of middle-skill employment is explained primarily by attrition or transitions. Attrition accounts for fewer younger workers entering these jobs compared to older workers retiring. Transitions explain changes in career patterns after a person has started working. The chapter then studies the characteristics of what would have been a “typical” middle-skill worker and uses this profile to examine how the jobs they hold have changed over time.

English Also available in: French

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