Extra-condensed knowledge
What is the future of work?
The future of work is now.
- Digitalisation and globalisation have sparked radical shifts in how we live and work.
- The coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis has accelerated these beyond anything we could have imagined.
- These changes raise essential questions about the precarity of our jobs, the support available if we're unable to work or retire, the skills we need for current and future jobs, the quality of those jobs, and what voice we have in shaping these outcomes.
- Reconstructing a better and more resilient labour market is an essential investment in the future and in future generations.
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Condensed knowledge
- What is the future of work? The future of work is now.
- Digitalisation and globalisation have sparked radical shifts in how we live and work.
- The coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis has accelerated these beyond anything we could have imagined.
- These changes raise essential questions about the precarity of our jobs, the support available if we're unable to work or retire, the skills we need for current and future jobs, the quality of those jobs, and what voice we have in shaping these outcomes.
- The OECD is monitoring closely how labour markets are changing in response to the mega-trends of technological change, globalisation and population ageing.
- The aim is to better understand the opportunities and risks associated with these new developments, and provide evidence-based advice on how countries should respond in the areas of skills policy, social protection, labour market regulation and social dialogue.
- Employment Outlook 2020 Facing the jobs crisis
- The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered one of the worst jobs crises since the Great Depression.
- There is a real danger that the crisis will increase poverty and widen inequalities, with the impact felt for years to come. Countries now need to do everything they can to stop this jobs crisis from turning into a social crisis.
- Reconstructing a better and more resilient labour market is an essential investment in the future and in future generations.
- The world is facing one of the worst public health and economic crises in a century
- The most serious pandemic in a century has triggered one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression.
- The combination of great uncertainty, fear of infection, individual restraints following public guidelines and mandatory lockdowns, however, immediately produced a sharp contraction in economic activity.
- The labour market and social policy response has been unprecedented.
- OECD countries have taken massive steps to improve access to, and the generosity of, sick leave and out-of-work income support as well as job retention schemes, whose take-up has been unprecedented in many countries.
- These policy responses were aimed at containing damage and supporting workers and companies as well as at avoiding destruction of viable activities and competences, thereby preparing the recovery.
- Many countries also took steps to facilitate a massive transition towards teleworking for workers who do not have to be physically present at their workplace.
- Job polarisation is mostly due to fewer younger workers entering middle-skill jobs than to older workers leaving them
- In contrast to popular perceptions, the decline in the share of middle-skill employment is due primarily to fewer younger workers entering middle-skill occupations than to mid-career workers being displaced and leaving them.
- Graduates from vocational education and training have strong labour market outcomes at the start of their career, but challenges are in sight
- Many vocational education and training (VET) programmes organised at the upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education level prepare students for middle-skill jobs that have been exposed to structural changes and face a significant risk of automation.
- Saving jobs, supporting workers
- Many countries are using job retention programmes to help keep workers employed and save viable jobs. These include measures that directly subsidise hours not worked, such as Germany’s Kurzarbeit or France’s Activité partielle, as well as measures that also top up the earnings of workers on reduced hours, such as The Netherland’s NOW (Noodmatregel Overbrugging Werkgelegenheid) or the Job Keeper Payment in Australia.
- About 60 million people across the OECD have been included in company claims for such programmes.
- Young people and women hit hard by jobs crisis
- The COVID-19 crisis is having a greater impact on some workers than others. Young people and women are among those at greatest risk of joblessness and poverty. They generally have less secure, unskilled jobs and are highly represented among workers in industries most affected by the crisis, such as tourism and restaurants.
Category 2: The Big Picture of the Digital Age
[genioux fact produced, deduced or extracted from OECD]
Type of essential knowledge of this “genioux fact”: Essential Deduced and Extracted Knowledge (EDEK).
Type of validity of the "genioux fact".
- Inherited from sources + Supported by the knowledge of one or more experts + Supported by a research.
Authors of the genioux fact
References
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; French: Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Économiques, OCDE) is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 37 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum of countries describing themselves as committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practices and coordinate domestic and international policies of its members. Generally, OECD members are high-income economies with a very high Human Development Index (HDI) and are regarded as developed countries. As of 2017, the OECD member countries collectively comprised 62.2% of global nominal GDP (US$49.6 trillion) and 42.8% of global GDP (Int$54.2 trillion) at purchasing power parity. The OECD is an official United Nations observer.
In 1948, the OECD originated as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC),[6] led by Robert Marjolin of France, to help administer the Marshall Plan (which was rejected by the Soviet Union and its satellite states). This would be achieved by allocating United States financial aid and implementing economic programs for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II.
In 1961, the OEEC was reformed into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development by the Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and membership was extended to non-European states. The OECD's headquarters are at the Château de la Muette in Paris, France. The OECD is funded by contributions from member countries at varying rates and had a total budget of €386 million in 2019.
Although OECD does not have a power to enforce its decisions, which further require unanimous vote from its members, it is recognised as highly influential publisher of mostly economic data through publications as well as annual evaluations and rankings of members countries.