Foreword

The OECD Employment Outlook provides an annual assessment of key labour market developments and prospects in OECD member countries. Each edition also contains several chapters focusing on specific aspects of how labour markets function and the implications for policy in order to promote more and better jobs. This year’s chapters cover recent wage developments, drivers of the decline in the labour share, the impact of collective bargaining on labour market performance, policies to smooth the transition back into employment for workers who lost their job due to economic change, causes and consequences of recent trends in unemployment benefit coverage, and an investigation of the reasons why the gender gap in labour income increases over the working life.

The 2018 OECD Employment Outlook is the joint work of staff of the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs. The staff of the Economics Department and Statistics and Data Directorate contributed to the preparation of Chapter 2. The whole Outlook has also greatly benefited from comments from other OECD directorates and contributions from national government delegates. However, its assessments of each country’s labour market prospects do not necessarily correspond to those made by the national authorities concerned.

This report was edited by Andrea Bassanini, and is based on contributions from Alexandre Georgieff (Chapter 1), Cyrille Schwellnus, Mathilde Pak, Pierre-Alain Pionnier and Elena Crivellaro (Chapter 2), Oliver Denk, Andrea Garnero, Alexander Hijzen and Sébastien Martin (Chapter 3), Paul Swaim (Chapter 4), Rodrigo Fernandez, Herwig Immervoll and Daniele Pacifico (Chapter 5) and Gwenn Parent (Chapter 6). Research assistance was provided by Sylvie Cimper, Thomas Manfredi, Sébastien Martin and Agnès Puymoyen. Pascal Marianna prepared the Statistical Annex with the assistance of Dana Blumin and Sylvie Cimper. Editorial assistance was provided by Brigitte Beyeler, Natalie Corry, Liv Gudmundson and Lucy Hulett.