Employment

This report delivers evidence-based and practical recommendations on how to better support employment and economic development in Flanders, Belgium. It builds on sub-national data analysis and consultations with local stakeholders in two case study areas (Antwerp and Limburg). It provides a comparative framework to understand the role of the local level in contributing to more and better quality jobs. The report can help national, regional, and local policy makers in Belgium build effective and sustainable partnerships at the local level, which join-up efforts and achieve stronger outcomes across employment, training, and economic development policies. Co-ordinated policies can help workers find suitable jobs, while also stimulating entrepreneurship and productivity, which increases the quality of life and prosperity within a community as well as throughout the country.

Tackling mental ill-health of the working-age population is becoming a key issue for labour market and social policies in OECD countries. OECD governments increasingly recognise that policy has a major role to play in keeping people with mental ill-health in employment or bringing those outside of the labour market back to it, and in preventing mental illness. This report on Belgium is the first in a series of reports looking at how the broader education, health, social and labour market policy challenges identified in Sick on the Job? Myths and Realities about Mental Health and Work (OECD, 2012) are being tackled in a number of OECD countries. It concludes that Belgium can build on a system with a number of structural strengths that are not yet exploited to the best possible extent.