Browse by: "2019"

While Italy has made major progress in the past decade to up-skill its population and workers, further efforts are needed to improve access to good quality adult learning opportunities. Training funds represent one important tool through which Italy could face the pressures brought about by the mega-trends, and equip adults and workers with the skills needed to thrive in the labour market and society. This report analyses how training funds are designed, used, and monitored, and provides actionable policy recommendations to ensure that they are put to their most effective use.

How can the European Union become more attractive for talented professionals looking for job opportunities worldwide? Can EU-level action support employers, private and public stakeholders in each Member State to better leverage international recruitment into the Single Market? This report presents a new overview of the obstacles that continue to hamper the attraction and recruitment of skills from outside Europe, and discusses the role of both public and private initiatives to help overcome these barriers. It provides a comparative analysis of the Expression of Interest (EoI) system of migration management as implemented in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, and assesses its potential to address the needs of the European labour migration system. The report presents several options and variants for adapting the EoI, step by step and EU-wide, and examines their feasibility, constraints and advantages.

Adult learning systems play a crucial role in helping people adapt to the changing world of work and develop relevant skills. Community Education and Training has been brought forward as a possible way to foster adult learning in South Africa, especially among disadvantaged groups. South Africa has a relatively large group of adults who have low levels of education and skills, and limited opportunities for skills development. This report looks at the potential role that Community Education and Training could play in South Africa, how the system should be financed, how to align the training offer with community needs, and how to ensure high-quality provision. The report provides international good practise examples and suggests actions that South African stakeholders might consider to develop the Community Education and Training system.

The Going for Growth report, updated biennially, looks at structural reforms in policy areas that have been identified as priorities to boost incomes in OECD countries and selected non-OECD economies (Argentina, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, the Russian Federation and South Africa). The selection of priorities and monitoring of reform actions are supported by internationally comparable indicators that enable countries to assess their economic performance and structural policies in a wide range of areas. In addition to detailed policy recommendations to address the priorities, as well as a follow-up on actions taken in the recent years, the report includes individual country notes and, since 2017, a focus on inclusive growth. The 2019 report also includes a special chapter on reform packages that boost growth while ensuring environmental sustainability, a new extension of the Going for Growth framework.

Taking the perspective of institutions and the system, Education Policy Outlook 2019: Working Together to Help Students Achieve their Potential, analyses the evolution of key education priorities and key education policies in 43 education systems. It compares more recent developments in education policy ecosystems (mainly between 2015 and 2019) with various education policies adopted between 2008 and 2014. This report includes around 460 education policy developments (with evidence of progress or impact for over 200 of them) spanning from early childhood education and care to higher education and lifelong learning on topics related to school improvement, evaluation and assessment, governance and funding. It looks into “what is being done”, as well as “why and how it works” to help education systems gain better understanding of how policies can have greater opportunities of success in their specific contexts.

This report on Latvia is the fifth country study published in a series of reports looking into how policies connect people with jobs. It focuses on Latvia's long-term unemployed and those at risk of long-term unemployment. The report analyses linked administrative microdata to evaluate quantitatively the impact of activation policies elaborated in Latvia’s Inclusive Employment Strategy 2015-2020. More specifically, it assesses the effectiveness of training measures, employment subsidies and a programme promoting regional mobility. This report derives policy lessons from the empirical results to help the Latvian authorities adjust the activation strategies and measures in order to strengthen labour market participation of the unemployed and improve their labour market outcomes, helping them move into more productive and better quality jobs.

Australia requires a strong system of adult learning to position firms and workers to succeed as skill demand changes. The country has scope to improve the coverage and inclusiveness of its adult learning system as coverage has declined since 2012, and several vulnerable groups are under-represented. Financial incentives, if carefully designed, can raise participation in adult learning by addressing cost and time barriers. This report summarises the advantages and disadvantages with various financial incentives to promote adult learning based on international and Australian experience. Drawing from these insights, as well as analysis of individual and firm-level barriers, the report provides policy recommendations for how Australia could reform its financial incentives to boost participation.

With digitalisation, deepening globalisation and population ageing, the world of work is changing. The extent to which individuals, firms and economies can harness the benefits of these changes critically depends on the readiness of adult learning systems to help people develop relevant skills for this changing world of work. This report presents the key results from the Priorities for Adult Learning (PAL) Dashboard which facilitates comparisons between countries along seven dimensions of the readiness of adult learning systems to address future skill challenges. Based on the dashboard, the report highlights in which areas action is needed, and policy examples from OECD and emerging countries throughout the report illustrate how these actions could be implemented.

Recruiting and retaining skilled staff is a long-standing challenge for the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector. OECD countries are increasingly demanding that ECEC staff be highly skilled and highly qualified, but a combination of low wages, a lack of status and public recognition, poor working conditions, and limited opportunities for professional development mean that recruitment and retention are frequently difficult. What can countries do to build a highly qualified and well-trained ECEC workforce? What is the best route to increasing staff skills without exacerbating staff shortages? How can countries boost pay and working conditions in the context of limited resources? Building on past OECD work on early childhood education and care, and drawing on the experience of OECD countries, this report outlines good practice policy measures for improving jobs in ECEC and for constructing a high-quality workforce.

This report assesses well-being in the four largest urban agglomerations of the province of Córdoba and provides policy recommendations to strengthen regional development practices, and ultimately improve people’s well-being. Using around 30 statistical indicators, the report analyses the performance of Córdoba’s agglomerations in 12 well-being dimensions in comparison with 391 regions of 36 OECD countries and 98 regions of Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Costa Rica. The report also documents the well-being inequalities between Córdoba’s four agglomerations and suggests three priorities areas which the province should focus on to tackle well-being challenges: i) Ensure that well-being indicators guide future decision-making; ii) Continue strengthening and modernising the provincial statistical system to expand the evidence-base; and, iii) Strengthen governance arrangements for more effective, efficient and inclusive regional development policy outcomes.

Belgium has a high level of productivity. However, growth of productivity has declined quite strongly over the past two decades, and more so than in other advanced economies. This is a worrying development, as fewer productivity gains mean less wage growth and a slowdown in improvements to pensions, health care and well-being. This In-Depth Productivity Review of Belgium assesses in detail the drivers of productivity and recommends a 7-Point Action Plan to reignite productivity growth in Belgium. Reviving productivity growth requires action in many areas cutting across governments and ministerial competences. Measures are needed to instil more dynamism in Belgium’s economy, both among businesses and in the labour market, and to make the public finances more growth-oriented. In addition to recommending detailed policy measures to revive productivity growth, the Review contains three analytical chapters that lay out the evidence base: Chapter 1 on economy-wide and sectoral trends in productivity; Chapter 2 on the role of firms for productivity, with a focus on the dispersion of performance among businesses; and Chapter 3 on the worker dimension of productivity, with a focus on the role of wage bargaining and skills.

Innovative ways of working with Indigenous Australians are needed to improve their employment prospects, especially as many work in jobs that are most likely to be impacted by digitalisation and automation in the future. This report considers both quantitative and qualitative data regarding employment, skills, and entrepreneurship opportunities for Indigenous Australians. A number of case studies were undertaken with employment and training providers in the cities of Sydney and Perth to gain insights into the delivery of employment and skills programmes targeted to Indigenous Australians. The report highlights critical success factors to better link Indigenous Australians to high quality jobs while also providing recommendations regarding future employment and skills programming.

In Brazil, as in other countries, innovation in the public sector is a core leadership challenge. Reflection is required on who these leaders are, what they should be able to do, and how they should be selected and held accountable to achieve results. This study establishes a new assessment framework for senior civil service (SCS) systems, based on the 2019 OECD Recommendation on Public Service Leadership and Capability. Using this framework, the study assesses Brazil’s current system and recommends specific actions to improve it. The report also contributes to a broader debate on public leadership competencies in public sector innovation, and the systems needed to appoint the most effective people and help them achieve results.

The 2019 edition of the International Migration Outlook analyses recent developments in migration movements and policies in OECD countries and some non-OECD economies. It also examines the evolution of labour market outcomes of immigrants in OECD countries. This year’s edition includes two special chapters, one on the contribution of temporary migration to the labour markets of OECD countries and the other on the long-term integration effects of family presence. The report also contains country notes and a statistical annex.

The series Investing in Youth builds on the expertise of the OECD on youth employment, social support and skills. It covers both OECD countries and key emerging economies. The report on Finland presents new results from a comprehensive analysis of the situation of young people in Finland, exploiting various sources of survey-based and administrative data. It provides a detailed assessment of education, employment and social policies in Finland from an international perspective, and offers tailored recommendations to help improve the school-to-work transition. Earlier reviews in the same series have looked at youth policies in Brazil (2014), Latvia and Tunisia (2015), Australia, Lithuania and Sweden (2016), Japan (2017), Norway (2018) and Peru (2019).

The series Investing in Youth builds on the expertise of the OECD on youth employment, social support and skills. It covers both OECD countries and key emerging economies. The report on Korea presents new results from a comprehensive analysis of the situation of young people in Korea, exploiting various sources of survey-based and administrative data. It provides a detailed assessment of education, employment and social policies in Korea from an international perspective, and offers tailored recommendations to help improve the school-to-work transition. Earlier reviews in the same series have looked at youth policies in Brazil (2014), Latvia and Tunisia (2015), Australia, Lithuania and Sweden (2016), Japan (2017), Norway (2018), and Finland and Peru (2019).