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OECD Employment Outlook 2024

The Net-Zero Transition and the Labour Market

image of OECD Employment Outlook 2024

The transition to net-zero emissions by 2050 will have profound impacts on the labour market and the jobs of millions of workers. Aggregate effects on employment are estimated to be limited. But many jobs will be lost in the shrinking high-emission industries, while many others will be created in the expanding low-emission activities. This edition of the OECD Employment Outlook examines the characteristics of the jobs that are likely to thrive because of the transition (“green-driven jobs”), including their attractiveness in terms of job quality, and compares them to jobs in high-emission industries that tend to shrink. The cost of job displacement in these latter industries is assessed along with the trajectories of workers out of them towards new opportunities, and the labour market policies that can facilitate job reallocation. Particular attention is devoted to upskilling and reskilling strategies to facilitate workers’ transition into fast-growing, green-driven occupations. The distributive impacts of climate-change mitigation policies are also examined, with a focus on carbon pricing and options to redistribute its tax revenue to those most impacted. As usual, the first chapter of the Outlook assesses recent labour market developments (including wage trends), but also provides an update of the OECD Job Quality indicators.

English

Editorial: From fear to action: Making labour and social policy central to the net-zero transition

At its core, the green transition to an environmentally sustainable society is a political choice. The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement was the moment the world came together to make that choice, responding to the most urgent public policy challenge of our time. Nearly a decade later, we know that reversing climate change will require many more such choices – at the local, national and international levels. It has also become clear that safeguarding the planet must include a simultaneous commitment to taking care of people affected by the green transition.

English Also available in: Italian

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