Jobs provide higher earnings and better benefits as countries grow, but they are also a driver of development. Poverty falls as people work their way out of hardship and as jobs empowering women lead to greater investments in children. Efficiency increases as workers get better at what they do, as more productive jobs appear, and less productive ones disappear. Societies flourish as jobs bring together people from different ethnic and social backgrounds and provide alternatives to conflict. Jobs are thus more than a byproduct of economic growth. They are transformational —they are what we earn, what we do, and even who we are. High unemployment and unmet job expectations among youth are the most immediate concerns. But in many developing countries, where farming and self-employment are prevalent and safety nets are modest are best, unemployment rates can be low. In these countries, growth is seldom jobless. Most of their poor work long hours but simply cannot make ends meet. And the violation of basic rights is not uncommon. Therefore, the number of jobs is not all that matters: jobs with high development payoffs are needed. Confronted with these challenges, policy makers ask difficult questions. Should countries build their development strategies around growth, or should they focus on jobs? Can entrepreneurship be fostered, especially among the many microenterprises in developing countries, or are entrepreneurs born? Are greater investments in education and training a prerequisite for employability, or can skills be built through jobs? In times of major crises and structural shifts, should jobs, not just workers, be protected? And is there a risk that policies supporting job creation in one country will come at the expense of jobs in other countries? The World Development Report 2013: Jobs offers answers to these and other difficult questions by looking at jobs as drivers of development—not as derived labor demand—and by considering all types of jobs—not just formal wage employment. The Report provides a framework that cuts across sectors and shows that the best policy responses vary across countries, depending on their levels of development, endowments, demography, and institutions. Policy fundamentals matter in all cases, as they enable a vibrant private sector, the source of most jobs in the world. Labor policies can help as well, even if they are less critical than is often assumed. Development policies, from making smallholder farming viable to fostering functional cities to engaging in global markets, hold the key to success.

Denmark has drawn much attention for its active labor market policies, but is almost unique in offering a voluntary public unemployment insurance program requiring a significant premium payment. A safety net program -- a less generous, means-tested social assistance plan -- completes the system. The voluntary system emerged as one of many European “Ghent systems,” essentially government subsidized trade union plans, but has since lost many key features of such plans. We assess system performance using a 10% sample of the Danish population drawn from administrative data. Coverage rates for the voluntary programs are surprisingly high, approximately 80 percent of the workforce, but the program has predictable selection effects, including adverse selection across risk classes and a substantial charity hazard (low coverage among those with generous treatment under the safety net program). The latter appears to explain the difficulty of shifting to a compulsory system; redistribution effects would be concentrated among the previously uninsured in the lowest decile of the income distribution, a problem in the Danish welfare state.

This book analyses the employment effects of job creation schemes for participating individuals in Germany. Programs provide subsidized jobs that are additional in nature and of value for society. International evidence on their effectiveness suggests that programs should be targeted to the needs of the unemployed and should be offered early in the period of unemployment. Both questions are studied for job creation schemes in Germany.

This paper discusses theoretical aspects and evidences related to designing labor market institutions in emerging market and developing economies. This note reviews the state of theory and evidence on the design of labor market institutions in a developing economy context and then reviews its consistency with actual labor market advice in a selected set of emerging and developing economies. The focus is mainly on three broad sets of institutions that matter for both workers’ protection and labor market efficiency: employment protection, unemployment insurance and social assistance, minimum wages and collective bargaining. Text mining techniques are used to identify IMF recommendations in these areas in Article IV Reports for 30 emerging and frontier economies over 2005–2016. This note has provided a critical review of the literature on the design of labor market institutions in emerging and developing market economies, and benchmarked the advice featured in IMF recommendations for 30 emerging market and frontier economies against the tentative conclusions from the literature.

Presents OECD's latest review of labour market trends and issues and includes articles on trade adjustment costs, in-work benefits, evaluation of labour market programmes, and public employment services.