Taxes and cash transfers reduce income inequality more in France than elsewhere in the OECD, because of the large size of the flows involved. But the system is complex overall. Its effectiveness could be enhanced in many ways, for example so as to achieve the same amount of redistribution at...

Sweden’s single biggest economic problem is the high number of people absent from work due to sickness or disability. This paper describes the problem and looks at what other countries have done to reduce absenteeism. It emphasises a mutual obligations approach to sickness insurance. This...

The Dutch labour market is strong but very tight. The unprecedently fast recovery from the pandemic, fast-changing skill demand, low hours worked, and the segmentation of the labour market contribute to labour shortages, weighing on growth potential and jeopardising the green and digital...

The unemployment rate among young people has reached painfully high levels, in particular among those young people with low levels of education. There are two crucial policy priorities to improve employment prospects for youth in Spain. First, in the very short term, there is need for quick...

The economic situation of young people is unsatisfactory. Educational inequalities have been widening for over a decade, due to a sharp decline in the results of the most highly disadvantaged students. The unemployment rate for the 20-24 age bracket has not dropped below 16% for nearly 30 years....

This paper provides both descriptive and empirical evidence about the main youth labour market problems in Spain. Using the experiences of other EU economies as a benchmark, we document the performance of Spain as regards a wide set of youth labour market dimensions. These include employment and...

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...