Technological transformation, has contributed to the emergence and development of new forms and patterns of work, also accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging technologies have the potential to bring considerable economic benefits and new opportunities but also entail disruptive adjustments and require ambitious policies for the future world of work, jobs and skills, to ensure inclusivity and sustainability. The OECD supports the G20’s efforts to address the Future of Work to ensure that people can develop their full potential so as to benefit, and not be endangered by or excluded from, the new digital era.

In 2017 under the G20 German Presidency, the OECD prepared a report on Key Issues for Digital Transformation in the G20 highlighting the potential positive impacts of digital technologies on labour productivity, economic growth, and access to services (i.e., healthcare, education, and banking). In an effort to support the German Presidency’s priority to shape the future of work through skills development, the OECD prepared a report on Job quality, Future of Work and Skills, putting forward priority policy areas that government should consider to mitigate the disruptive impact of these megatrends while enhancing opportunities for workers to benefit from them.

In 2018, the G20 Argentinian Presidency has placed the Future of Work agenda as a cross cutting theme spanning various work streams, notably in the Employment Working Group, the newly created Education Working Group, the Digital Economy Task Force under the Sherpa track as well as under the Finance track.

The OECD has been providing its rich data and analysis, drawing on its multidisciplinary expertise. The OECD shared its analysis on the emerging business models in the digital economy, on promoting adequate social protection, on changing skills needs and on a lifecycle approach to investing in skills. The OECD has been supporting the G20 in deepening its understanding of the fundamental digital transformation, for example, by examining the root of the digital gender divide and providing policy directions for G20 countries as a follow up to the 2017 G20 Roadmap for Digitalisation: Policies for a Digital Future. OECD work in this area also supports the Argentinian Presidency’s approach of mainstreaming gender across the G20 agenda.

Work has been carried out with the Saudi Presidency on the changing patterns of work and the transitioning to new social protection models, as well as on policy options to support digitalization of business models during the pandemic.

The OECD is planning to contribute to the agenda of the Italian G20 Presidency in 2021 on the changing pattern of work in the digital era, supporting the ambition of the Italian Presidency to deliver policy options to make the principle of “access to social protection for all” operational and sustainable in a changing world of work, as well as guiding principles for the regulation of remote and platform work.