Emploi

OECD countries deliver publicly-funded employment services through different institutional arrangements. While in most OECD countries the majority of such services are delivered by public employment services, in two in five OECD and EU countries (or regions) they are partly or fully contracted out to external providers, including for-profit and not-for-profit entities. Contracting out employment services to outside providers offers many potential benefits: an increased flexibility to scale capacity in line with changes in unemployment, the possibility of offering services more cost-effectively, the option to better tailor services through the use of specialised service providers and the possibility to offer jobseekers choice of providers. However, achieving these benefits will depend on the actual design and monitoring of the contracting arrangements that are put in place. Focusing on the job brokerage, counselling and case-management employment services typically provided by public agencies, this paper reviews the experiences of OECD countries that have contracted out employment services through outcome-based payment schemes. It highlights the need to carefully consider questions related to the design and implementation of this form of contracting: fostering competition amongst potential providers, setting appropriate minimum service requirements and prices for different client groups, and ensuring the accountability of providers through monitoring and evaluations. These issues are discussed based on country examples, which are also detailed in factsheets contained in the online annex of the paper.

It is increasingly understood that entrepreneurship plays a critical role in economic growth and well-being. But which policies can governments develop to release its benefits? This publication offers guidance and inspiration. It identifies the range of entrepreneurship policies being pursued internationally, the problems the policies seek to solve and how they are designed and implemented. The focus is on how to create a broad base of start-ups with the potential for sustainability and growth by building a pipeline of new entrepreneurs, supporting start-ups to overcome barriers in areas such as skills, finance and innovation and stimulating vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems. The publication examines the rationale for entrepreneurship policy, presents a typology of policy approaches and highlights principles for policy success. The points are illustrated by 16 case studies of inspiring practice policies from 12 OECD countries. These cases span policies for regulations and taxation, entrepreneurship education and training, advice and coaching, access to finance, internationalisation, innovation, and holistic packages for ecosystem building. Helpful summary tables guide readers to the information that will respond to their questions. The publication will give readers an overview of key entrepreneurship policy interventions and tips on entrepreneurship policy success.

La révolution technologique qui a marqué les dernières décennies du XXe siècle a entraîné une forte augmentation de la demande de facultés de traitement de l’information et d’autres compétences cognitives et interpersonnelles sur le marché du travail. Sur la base des résultats des 33 pays et régions ayant participé aux deux premières vagues de l'Enquête sur les compétences des adultes en 2011-12 et 2014-15, ce rapport décrit les compétences dans trois domaines de traitement de l'information et examine comment les compétences sont liées au marché du travail et aux résultats sociaux. Il décrit notamment les résultats des six pays ayant participé à la troisième vague du premier cycle du PIAAC en 2017-18 (Équateur, États-Unis, Hongrie, Kazakhstan, Mexique et Pérou). L’Évaluation des compétences des adultes, un produit du Programme de l’OCDE pour l’évaluation internationale des compétences des adultes (PIAAC), a été conçue pour montrer dans quelle mesure les individus possèdent certaines de ces facultés et compétences clés et comment ils les utilisent dans le cadre professionnel et dans la vie privée. Cette enquête, la première du genre, évalue directement le niveau de compétence dans trois domaines du traitement de l’information : la littératie, la numératie et la résolution de problèmes.

This edition of the Reader’s Companion accompanies Skills Matter: Additional Results from the Survey of Adult Skills that reports the results from the 39 countries and regions that participated in the 3 rounds of data collection in the first cycle of PIAAC, with a particular focus on the 6 countries that participated in the third round of the study (Ecuador, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru and the United States). It describes the design and methodology of the survey and its relationship to other international assessments of young students and adults. The Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), was designed to provide insights into the availability of some key skills in society and how they are used at work and at home. The first survey of its kind, it directly measures proficiency in several information-processing skills – namely literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments.

One of a series of studies on vocational education and training, this review focuses on the vocational education and training (VET) in Sweden and concludes with policy recommendations. Over recent years, Sweden has launched a series of reforms to enhance involvement of social partners in VET, to increase provision of work-based learning in VET programmes and to promote apprenticeship. Higher vocational education and training launched in 2002 has been expanding. At the same time, numerous sectors are grappling with labour shortages increasing pressure on VET to better match the provision to changing demand for skills; and fewer young people opt for VET programmes than in the past. This report suggests several ways in which the Swedish VET system may respond to these challenges. Sweden may encourage co-operation between schools, for example by linking it to school evaluation and funding criteria. The report also argues that Sweden may further enhance social partners’ involvement in VET by creating a framework for systematic social partners’ involvement at the local level and by providing social partners with more responsibility over some aspects of VET.

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, commonly known as the Nordic countries, have been leaders in the development of modern family and gender policy, and the explicit promotion of gender equality at home, at work, and in public life. Today, on many measures, they boast some of the most gender-equal labour markets in the OECD.This report shows that improvements in gender equality have contributed considerably to economic growth in the Nordic countries. Increases in female employment alone are estimated to account for anywhere between roughly 0.05 and 0.40 percentage points to average annual GDP per capita growth – equivalent to 3 to 20% of total GDP per capita growth over the past 50 years or so, depending on the country.The Nordic countries are closer than most to achieving gender equality in the labour market. But the last mile may well prove to be the longest one. To make further progress, a continued assessment of the effectiveness of existing public policies and workplace practices is needed. Only with resolve and a continued focus can Nordic countries ensure that men and women contribute to their economies and societies in gender equal measure. 

This report is part of the series on 'Investing in Youth' which builds on the expertise of the OECD on youth employment, social support and skills. This series covers both OECD countries and countries in the process of accession to the OECD, as well as some emerging economies. The report provides a detailed diagnosis of youth policies in the area of education, training, social and employment policies. Its main focus is on disadvantaged youth including those at risk of disengaging.

The costs of a persistent misalignment between the supply and demand for skills are substantial, ranging from lost wages for workers to lower productivity for firms and countries. Addressing skills imbalances has become even more of a concern as OECD governments reflect on the implications of technological progress, digitisation, demographic change and globalisation for jobs and work organisation. In light of these challenges, OECD has undertaken new research to shed light on how countries measure changing skill needs while ensuring that employment, training and migration institutions are responsive to the emergence of new skill requirements. The Getting Skills Right in Sweden review offers an in-depth analysis of the key areas where policy action is required to spur the development of an efficient system for skills assessment and anticipation to inform policy in the country. The report provides an assessment of practices in the following areas: i) the collection of information on existing and future skill needs; ii) the use of skill needs information to guide policy development in the areas of labour, education and migration; and iii) the existence of effective governance arrangements to ensure good co-ordination among the key stakeholders in the collection and use of skill needs information.

This review is the first in a new series on the skills and labour market integration of immigrants and their children. With 16% of its population born abroad, Sweden has one of the larger immigrant populations among the European OECD countries. Estimates suggest that about half of the foreign-born population originally came to Sweden as refugees or as the family of refugees and Sweden has been the OECD country that has had by far the largest inflows of asylum seekers relative to its population. In all OECD countries, humanitarian migrants and their families face greater challenges to integrate into the labour market than other groups. It is thus not surprising that immigrant versus native-born differences are larger than elsewhere, which also must be seen in the context of high skills and labour market participation among the native-born. For both genders, employment disparities are particularly pronounced among the low-educated, among whom immigrants are heavily overrepresented. These immigrants face particular challenges related to the paucity of low-skilled jobs in Sweden, and policy needs to acknowledge that their integration pathway tends to be a long one. Against this backdrop, Sweden has highly developed and longstanding integration policies that mainly aim at upskilling immigrants while temporarily lowering the cost of hiring, while other tools that work more strongly with the social partners and the civil society are less well developed and need strengthening.