Social safety nets protect citizens against hardship. By offering compensation, social safety nets may help overcome the political resistance to trade liberalisation and structural reform, but they can also weaken the incentives to work and save. Depending on their design, safety nets may also...

The deep recession has led to a marked deterioration in labour market conditions in the OECD area. This paper, which draws heavily on other ongoing analytical work at the OECD, takes stock of recent labour market developments, highlights some of the key uncertainties in the early stages of the...