Why are workers mismatched in the first place? Many, if not most, students choose a field of study based on what they want to become and do to earn a living. Yet almost four in ten workers end up doing something unrelated. This is sometimes by choice but not always.

The fact remains that robots have persistently failed to imitate the most human of skills, such empathy, teamwork, relationship building, etc. While technology may be reducing the demand for some routine skills, it is simultaneously increasing the demand for more difficult-to-automate social skills.

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.

7th annual expert meeting of the initiative on Employment and Skills Strategies in Southeast Asia (ESSSA) and GIZ/ RECOTVET Policy Dialogue - 7-8 October, 2015 - Sokha Angkor Resort, Siem Reap, Cambodia

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

Encouraging more people to continue to work later in life would help Denmark meet the challenges of its rapidly ageing population. The ratio of the population aged 65 and over to the working-age population is projected to increase from 30% in 2012 to 43% in 2050, according to a new OECD report.

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.

Older workers earn more than younger workers with the same skills. So what explains the lower return to skill among younger, less-experienced workers? Employers may need time to learn about (and reward) the true skills of young workers. “Experience and the returns to education and skill in OECD countries, Evidence of employer learning?” published in the OECD Journal: Economic Studies.

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.

The webinars enabled serious discussion on the concept of ‘local economic resilience’ in an informal setting that facilitates interaction and questions. The format featured presentations from policy experts and a roundtable discussion with the audience.

Recent reforms have made pension systems more financially sustainable and pensioners have higher living standards than ever before. But future generations are likely to find their pension entitlements much less generous than today’s and many may face a serious risk of pensioner poverty, according to a new OECD report.

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.

The digital revolution, globalisation and rapid population ageing are changing profoundly the types of jobs needed and the way we work, and may lead to even more dramatic changes over the coming decades. Will the many unemployed ever find a job again with the skills they have today in new world of work? Where are new jobs being created and what do they look like?

Back to the future of work, policy discussion at the Forum on the Future of Work and Labour Ministerial, 14 and 15 January 2016.

Skills for growth: human capital composition and economic performance

The webinars will enable serious discussion on the concept of ‘local economic resilience’ in an informal setting that facilitates interaction and questions. The format will feature presentations from policy experts and a roundtable discussion with the audience.

Good pay, labour market security and a decent working environment can go hand in hand with high employment, according to new OECD findings on the quality of jobs in 45 countries.

Average wages can vary markedly between socio-economic groups (gender, native- and foreign-born; high-skilled and low-skilled parents; workers of different ethnicities; age). These differences between groups of workers contribute to high overall wage inequality.

All OECD countries, except the United States, provide nationwide paid maternity leave. Over half also offer paternity leave to fathers right after childbirth. By enabling fathers to take on a greater share of the childcare burden, parental leave can support women’s careers.

Openness to change and a continuous questioning of the way we work are the keys to being prepared for the Future of Work. This advice comes from Mark Keese, Head of the Employment Analysis and Policy Division at the OECD, and we catch up with Mark following the OECD's Future of Work Forum in January 2016.

A discussion on how can we reconcile the apparently contradicting views of labour market demand for soft skills versus technical job-specific skills.

Today the OECD is launching a new project with JP Morgan and Chase Foundation to measure and analyse skills needs in a harmonized way across countries. Experts from various countries and fields of discipline are meeting at the OECD to discuss methodological issues involved in developing a cross-country indicator of skill needs. By informing policy, this new data tool will make strides towards addressing skill shortages.

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.

Sweden should address housing shortages, begin integration activities early, and improve the support for those with low skills to speed up the effective integration of refugees, according to a new OECD report.

OECD analyses have begun to understand the relationship between digitalisation, jobs and skills, the magnitude of potential job substitution due to technological change, the relationship between globalisation and wage polarisation, as well as the changes to the organisation of work.

Prince William did it, Justin Timberlake did it, and so did David Cameron and Mark Zuckerberg. All four took paternity leave to spend time with babies George, Charlotte, Silas, Florence and Max. These trailblazers are great role models in combining family and work–at least when a new baby arrives–but men around the world are still too slow in following their example.

Ongoing innovation in technology is changing labour markets worldwide. To understand the future of work in the digital era, we need to move away from the traditional economic classification of manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors.

Workers can be mismatched by qualifications while their skills are, in fact, adequate for their jobs. This situation, ‘apparent’ qualification mismatch is more common in certain fields of study than in others and speaks to the need of strengthening the links between employers, education providers and students to share information on the true skills, to avoid true skills mismatch.

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.

Although Lithuania’s growth has been impressive, inequality is high, the risk of poverty is one of the highest of European countries, and life expectancy is comparatively low and strongly dependent on socio-economic background.

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.

Labour markets are continuing to recover from the crisis and employment is set to return to pre-crisis levels in 2017, but wage growth remains weak, according to a new OECD report.

This chapter analyses how skills are used at work, why skills use matters for workers and economies and its key determinants. It draws on data for the 28 OECD countries participating in the Survey of Adult Skills.

The Netherlands should improve its policies to attract and retain highly skilled migrants in order to address labour shortages and strengthen its position as a knowledge-based economy, according to a new OECD report.

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.

The Regional School of Public Administration (ReSPA) has devoted its 9th Annual Conference to opening direct channels of discussion on experiences, methodologies and innovative practices in the process of optimization of public administration in the Western Balkans.

Widespread increases in inequality over the past three decades have raised the question of the distribution of the growth dividends.

Reforms that boost growth by enhancing economic flexibility often meet strong opposition related to concerns that they may imply adverse consequences for categories of workers. This study investigates how making product or labour market regulation more flexible changes workers’ risks of moving out of employment and jobless people’s chances of becoming employed.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are profoundly changing the skill profile of jobs. Skill development policies need to be overhauled to reduce the risk of increased unemployment and growing inequality.

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

Skill requirements in the labour market have significantly changed over the past two decades. The restructuring of the economy is making the labour market increasingly knowledge-based.

Malaysia has followed a comparatively equitable development path, largely eliminating absolute poverty and greatly reduced ethnic inequality.

OECD Global Network of Schools of Government provides direct access to OECD governance expertise and enables exchange of schools’ experiences and good practices in ensuring that public sector employees have the skills and competencies to address current and future priorities.

This paper provides a quantitative description of decoupling in OECD countries over the past two decades, with the results suggesting that it is explained by declines in both labour shares and the ratio of median to average wages (a partial measure of wage inequality).

Australia’s strong economy has helped drive a healthy job market. But to avoid a future shortage of labour as the population ages, further efforts are needed to help older women, indigenous Australians and mothers with young children into work, according to a new OECD report.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are changing profoundly the skill profile of jobs. To thrive in the digital economy, ICT skills will not be enough and other complementary skills will be needed, ranging from good literacy and numeracy skills through to the right socio-emotional skills to work collaboratively and flexibly.

New Zealand should extend access to income support and introduce a longer minimum notice period for all workers to help disadvantaged laid-off workers find a new job and maintain their job quality and living standards, according to a new OECD report.