More News

Protecting people, rather than specific jobs, plays a key role in promoting labour-market inclusiveness and dynamism. Effective unemployment benefits reduce inequality, and raise productivity by facilitating a good match between workers’ skills and job requirements. They are a crucial policy lever for adapting to the major societal, technological and environmental transitions of our time. This report is the first of a number of OECD country reviews of income support policies. Each report analyses key policy challenges, discusses recent reform initiatives, and identifies good practices from other OECD countries. This report on Korea focuses on avenues for strengthening benefit coverage, income security and re-employment in the context of a 'dual' labour market with large parts of the workforce in short-duration, non-standard or informal employment. It welcomes Korea’s recent reforms towards more accessible jobseeker support, and points to priorities for additional policy action to make income and employment support more effective and inclusive.

Protecting people, rather than specific jobs, plays a key role in promoting labour-market inclusiveness and dynamism. Effective unemployment benefits reduce inequality, and facilitate a good match between workers’ skills and job requirements. They are a crucial policy lever for adapting to the major societal, technological and environmental transitions of our time. This report on the United States is the second of a number of OECD country reviews of income support policies. Each report analyses key policy challenges, discusses recent reform initiatives, and identifies good practices from other OECD countries. The report examines the reach and generosity of unemployment insurance and other income support for working age households, with a special focus on disadvantaged labour market groups. What are key gaps in benefit receipt between wage- and salaried employees and non-standard workers (part-time workers, those on temporary contracts, and self-employed workers including own-account workers)? What factors, including race/ethnicity and gender, drive non-entitlement to unemployment compensation? The report examines these questions, considers the impact of recent extensions to the unemployment insurance programme in response to the COVID pandemic, and outlines policy directions for strengthening out-of-work support.

The share of part-time employment in total employment has risen in most OECD countries over the past decades. While this is often associated with increased female labour force participation and the desire of many workers to achieve an improved work-life balance, there has been a significant decline in the average earnings of part-time workers relative to full-time workers, as well as an increase in involuntary part-time employment in a number of countries. This paper presents a summary of the taxation of part-time work in OECD countries. It includes new calculations of the effective tax rates on part-time work including those for male and female part-time workers and for different household types. These indicators provide an evidence base for policymakers looking to understand the impact of the tax system on the choice of employment form. The analysis shows that average tax rates for part-time workers are lower than those applied to full-time workers in almost all OECD countries, reducing post-tax gender wage gaps, although marginal tax rates are often higher for part-time workers. These differences between the taxation of part-time and full-time workers are largely due to differences in earnings levels, and therefore to the progressivity of countries’ tax systems, rather than to differences in the tax treatment applied to part-time workers relative to full-time workers.

Thriving middle classes are the backbone of democratic societies and strong economies, but in many countries, they face mounting pressure as their economic strength is eroding relative to higher-income households. Real wages and incomes for most middle-class households have grown only very slowly, and rising expenditures have been putting further pressure on living standards. Meanwhile, globalisation, digitalisation, and demographic change are eroding job opportunities for middle-skilled workers, who risk sliding into lower-paid employment. The COVID-19 crisis has accentuated socio-economic divides and may end up accelerating some of the above trends. This publication builds upon the OECD’s publications on the middle class (Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle Class) and social mobility (A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility). It demonstrates that the German middle class is similar in size as in peer countries, but substantially smaller than it was in the mid-1990s. Lower middle‑class households face an increased risk of slipping out of the middle; meanwhile, upward mobility into the middle has declined, particularly for workers in 'typical' middle-class occupations. Employment growth forecasts point to further occupational polarisation. The review proposes policy options for strengthening the employability of middle-class workers, creating good-quality, future-oriented jobs, and boosting middle‑class disposable incomes.