OECD - OECD Employment Outlook 2016

Labour markets continue to recover from the Great Recession, albeit in a painfully slow manner in many OECD countries. While progress has been made in reversing the crisis-related increase in unemployment, little progress has been made in recouping the lost ground on wages. Overall, three-quarters of OECD countries still face either a sizeable unemployment gap an unemployment rate that is 2 percentage points or more above the pre-crisis level or a sizeable wage gap average wages at least 5% below the level they would be at if they had continued the trend increase during 2000-07 or both.

The slow progress in mending the labour market is largely the result of the global economy being in a low-growth trap characterised by low investment, anaemic productivity gains and weak job creation with stagnant wages. There is an urgent need to make full use of all policy tools macroeconomic and structural policies at the international and national level to bring back stronger and sustainable growth while ensuring that its benefits are shared more widely. Employment policies can and should play an important role in this endeavour. This edition of the OECD Employment Outlook helps to define the nature of this challenge and identifies a number of policy actions that could play an important role in helping to make the labour market more dynamic and inclusive, even in the face of persistent economic headwinds.