Special Study
OECD Employment Outlook 2015 Jobs outlook improving slowly but millions risk being trapped at bottom of economic ladder
Employment to remain below pre-crisis levels till end of 2016, says OECD
T
he jobs recovery is slowly gathering pace, but employment will remain well below pre-crisis levels in many countries, especially in Europe, through to the end of 2016, according to a new OECD report.
According to the ‘OECD Employment Outlook 2015’ around 42 million people are currently without work across the OECD, down from 45 million in 2014 but still 10 million more than just before the crisis. Unemployment in the 34 OECD countries is projected to continue declining over the next 18 months to reach 6.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2016. It will remain above 20 per cent in Greece and Spain. “Time is running out to prevent the scars of the crisis becoming permanent, with millions of workers trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder,” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría, launching the report in Paris. “If that happens, the long-run legacy of the crisis would be to ratchet inequality up yet another notch from levels that were already far too high. Governments need to act now to avoid a permanent increase in the number of workers stuck in chronic joblessness or moving between unemployment and low-paid precarious jobs.” 42 |Manafez Dubai |October 2015 |
Jobs outlook improving slowly but millions risk being trapped at bottom of economic ladder
The outlook finds that long-term unemployment remains unacceptably high. More than one in three jobseekers in the OECD have been out of work for 12 months or more, equivalent to 15.7 million people.
economic ladder,” said Stefano Scarpetta, OECD Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs. Youth unemployment still above pre-crisis levels The high and persistent youth joblessness level also remains a major concern. While levels have peaked in the worst hit countries of Southern Europe, youth unemployment remains above pre-crisis level in nearly every OECD country.
This is an increase of 77.2 per cent since the end of 2007. More than half of these people have been without work for two years or more, and their chances of finding work again are shrinking.
The share of young people neither employed nor in education or training, the so-called NEETs, is still higher than in 2007 in more than three quarters of OECD countries among 20-24 year-olds and nearly two thirds of countries among 25-29 year-olds.
“The jobs recovery is becoming more widespread and gaining momentum putting unemployment on a declining path in most countries, including those hardest hit by the crisis. However, the recovery is still far from complete and time is running out to prevent millions of workers from being left trapped at the bottom of the
Moreover, the Outlook finds evidence that a person’s long-term career prospects are largely determined in the first 10 years of working life. This suggests that many of the youth who finished school during the crisis and have struggled to find work since may find their future career opportunities limited.