Reviewing the 2018 OECD Jobs Strategy – anything new under the sun?

Abstract

This article analyses the documents released by the OECD at the end of May 2018 launching a revised Jobs Strategy. The analysis frames the new initiative in the context of the two previous Jobs Strategies of 1994 and 2006. We pose the general question of whether continuity or discontinuity is the prevailing theme, along with a specific question concerning the significance of new themes of job quality and inclusive growth, given the documents’ simultaneous endorsement of the older theme of flexibility-enhancing policies to ensure a labour market functioning without rigidities. Flexibility had been the central feature of previous Jobs Strategies, although there was also a nod in the direction of an alternative route to better employment performance in the 2006 revision. The 2018 documents assert that the new strategy represents a significant departure from the previous iterations. This article provides a critical evaluation of this claim.

Quality of employment and employment protection. Effects of employment protection on temporary and permanent employment

“…Fuelled by these arguments, and the recommendations made by international organizations, such as the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), many economies have approved labour market reforms. These reforms have acted on what is presumed to be the main sources of rigidities in the labour market: the unemployment protection schemes, the collective bargaining and the employment protection legislation (Brancaccio et al, 2018;Ferreiro and Gomez, 2017;Kugler, 2019;McBride and Watson, 2019;Tridico and Pariboni, 2017). It was taken for granted that in the longterm these reforms would lead to more employment and to lower and more stable unemployment rates.…”

International organisations: policy agendas and transfer mechanisms in global labour governance

“…The OECD, on its part, has predominantly soft means to influence countries (Marcussen, 2004;Ougaard, 2010). The OECD exercises relevant agenda-setting capacities in ministerial meetings; it elaborates Jobs Strategies; publishes flagship reports that assess member states' performance in labour market policy, and offers comparative data on different types of employment policies (McBride and Watson, 2019). In comparison, the ILO plays a similar role to the OECD: it produces international labour statistics and creates policy frameworks that countries are expected to emulate (Jakovleski, Jerbi and Biersteker, 2019;Silva, 2021).…”

Financialization and the rise of atypical work

“…Figure 1 reports the evolution of the mean temporary employment rate and the mean involuntary part‐time employment rate for the total workforce, women and employees over 65 years old since 1997, based on our sample of OECD economies 1 . Despite significant institutional heterogeneity across countries, OECD economies have largely converged towards increased marketization and labour market liberalization (see McBride and Watson 2019). Yet, looking at age and gender discrepancies is important.…”