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This report, part of a series covering around 20 OECD countries, contains a survey of Spain's main barriers to employment for older workers, an assessment of the adequacy and effectiveness of existing measures to overcome these barriers, and a set of policy recommendations to further action by public authorities and social partners.  These recommendations are designed to alleviate some of the pension and health care pressures governments are facing because of ageing populations.

With rapidly aging populations, old-age pension reform and early-retirement schemes alone may not suffice to provide adequate employment opportunities. Additional measures will clearly be needed on wage scales, job discrimination, skills acquisition, and working conditions. Attitudes will also have to change about working later in life. Little is known, however, about what countries have been or should be doing on those issues. This report on Sweden begins a series of around 20 OECD country reports intended to fill the gap. Each contains a survey of the main employment barriers confronting older people, an assessment of existing remedial measures, and policy recommendations for further action.

This report, part of a series covering around 20 OECD countries, contains a survey of the UK's main barriers to employment for older workers, an assessment of the adequacy and effectiveness of existing measures to overcome these barriers, and a set of policy recommendations to further action by public authorities and social partners.  These recommendations are designed to alleviate some of the pension and health care pressures governments are facing because of ageing populations.

Given the ageing challenges, there is an increasing pressure in OECD countries to promote longer working lives. This report provides an overview of policy initiatives implemented in Denmark over the past decade. Even if these recent reforms are well in line with the recommendations of the 2005 OECD report Ageing and Employment Policies: Denmark, the focus has been put mainly on the supply side. The aim of this new report is to identify what more could be done to promote longer working lives. As a first step, the government should assess closely the implementation process to ensure that the expected outcomes of the reforms are achieved. More broadly, the strategy should act simultaneously in three areas by: i) strengthening incentives to carry on working; ii) tackling employment barriers on the side of employers; and iii) improving the employability of older workers.

People today are living longer than ever before, while birth rates are dropping in the majority of OECD countries. Such demographics raise the question: are current public social expenditures adequate and sustainable? Older workers play a crucial role in the labour market. Now that legal retirement ages are rising, fewer older workers are retiring early, but at the same time those older workers who have lost their job after the age of 50 have tended to remain in long term unemployment. What can countries do to help? How can they give older people better work incentives and opportunities? These reports offer analysis and assessment on what the best policies are for fostering employability, job mobility and labour demand at an older age.

In the United States, employment rates at older ages are comparatively high at 62% among 55-64 year-olds against 59% on average in OECD countries in 2016. However, there are large disparities across population groups. Early retirement remains a widespread phenomenon, especially among workers from vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds. Preventing old-age disparities in terms of employment outcomes and retirement income from widening is crucial. This report looks at the various pathways out of the labour market for older workers, and how employers can be supported to retain and hire older workers. It examines the best ways that the United States can promote the employability of workers throughout their working lives and more equal outcomes among older workers.

Government workforces are ageing even more rapidly than the rest of society. This raises specific challenges and opportunities. An ageing public service increases fiscal burdens while decreasing immediate capacities to deliver services. In the long run, however, it also offers a strategic opportunity to downsize the public sector workforce if necessary and to change employment conditions and the management of government employees where this is deemed reasonable. This book reviews the experience of 9 OECD member countries in this field. It presents some conclusions on strategies that countries could implement in order to adjust their human resource policies to the wider ageing challenge. 

OECD societies have become increasingly diverse in the past decades, offering new opportunities if diversity is properly managed. Ensuring that OECD countries are equipped to make the most of diversity by fully utilising all talent among diverse populations and promoting inclusive labour markets is a key challenge. Both businesses and governments are responding to this challenge with policies to strengthen the inclusion of diverse groups in the workplace and labour markets. This report considers five key groups who are widely considered disadvantaged in the labour market and society at large and who often face discrimination based on their group membership: immigrants, their descendants and ethnic minorities; LGBT people; older people; people with disabilities; and women. It assesses: i) how the inclusion of these groups in OECD labour markets has evolved over time, ii) the evidence on how diversity affects economic outcomes; and iii) which policies countries have implemented and what is known about their effectiveness.

This report on Canada is the ninth country study published in a series of reports on policies to connect people with jobs. It provides an assessment of Employment and Social Development Canada’s system of impact evaluation of active labour market policies (ALMPs). It reviews the use of linked administrative data and quasi-experimental methods to conduct impact evaluations and cost-benefit analysis of ALMPs. The process of quality assurance and communication of the results of the evaluations are also assessed. The report highlights areas of good practice which could be useful for other countries and offers recommendations to build on the good work already carried out by Canada.

Policies aimed at reducing the environmental impact of human activities have important consequences for labour markets, jobs, and skills. As employment is shifting towards more sustainable activities, workers are increasingly expected to have skills that support the transition to a greener economy. Assessing and anticipating emerging skill needs is crucial to avoid bottlenecks and sustain the green transition. This report sheds light on existing methods to measure changes in skill demand and supply related to the green transition through an in-depth review of practices in five OECD countries (Australia, Austria, France, Norway and Sweden). It also identifies best practice on how to feed information on changing skill needs into policies, notably in the areas of employment, career guidance, education and adult learning.