Israel’s top economic officials were utterly bewildered by the 20% jump in unemployment after a switch to the OECD harmonized definition. Since last weekend, when the change was revealed, none of the country’s leading economists has been able to explain how a different measuring method jacked up the numbers. On Monday the head of the … Continue reading
The UK is heading back into recession and will be among the slowest of the world’s largest economies to recover in the first half of this year, according to a study by the Paris-based thinktank, the OECD. Only Italy will struggle over a longer period to return to growth, highlighting the difficult situation confronting the … Continue reading
The Local – German women have to contend with the biggest gender gaps in wages and career opportunities in Europe, according to a new study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The report found that women in full-time jobs earn an average of 21.6 percent less than their male colleagues. This is … Continue reading
The National Guidance Research Forum (NGRF) website, launched in 2004 for careers guidance practitioners and researchers as a collaborative project between the Warwick Institute for Employment Research (IER), University of Warwick, the International Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby and KnowNet, a specialist software company, has posted a summary of the main trends for … Continue reading
The eurozone crisis has sown divisions in the European family, and Greece in particular has often been singled out for criticism. Has Greece been living beyond its means? Are Greeks lazy? On this second point, the statistics tell a surprising story. Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that the average … Continue reading
Composite Leading Economic Indicators (CLI) in February points to a positive change in momentum for major geopolitical entities, according to the OECD. Previously, there has been little overall change in the Composite Leading Indicators, most of which were in negative territory. The Composite Leading Indicators’ positive momentum is being driven primarily by the United States … Continue reading
Active labour market policies are commonly used tool to fight unemployment. In the early 1960s all Scandinavian countires have introduced several different measures to have an effect on their labour markets. In the late 1970s in most developed countries of OECD government expenditures on those policies reached the level of 1-1.5% of GDP. High levels of expenditures created a need … Continue reading
In this paper we analyse, on the basis of a matching model, the impact of labour market reforms enacted in Estonia over the last few years on the country’s unemployment rate, which increased markedly in the wake of the recent financial and economic crisis. The results suggest that active labour market policies, including linking unemployment … Continue reading
Provisional estimates show that quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the OECD area decelerated sharply to 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2011, against 0.6% in the third quarter. Source: oecd.org Quarterly National Accounts – GDP Growth – Fourth Quarter 2011, OECD.
“Conventional wisdom suggests that international migration of the highly skilled from poor to rich countries — the so-called brain drain phenomenon — threatens development.” writes the OECD in its new report Migration and the Brain Drain Phenomenon. It then adss: “Comparing emigration rates of the highly educated — the share of a country’s nationals with a … Continue reading
Tax and benefit systems play a major role in reducing market-driven inequality, but have become less effective at redistributing income since the mid-1990s. The main reason lies on the benefits side: benefits levels fell in nearly all OECD countries, eligibility rules were tightened to contain spending on social protection, and transfers to the poorest failed … Continue reading
According to The Economist, “the academic achievements of (german) schoolchildren, measured in international tests, look only mediocre… (And) the reading abilities of German 15-year-olds, according to the PISA studies published by the OECD, are below the average for rich countries. The question is then: “In a world where brainpower matters more and more, how does … Continue reading
Societies with more income inequality have higher infant death rates than other societies: Societies with more income inequality have higher rates of mental illness than other societies: Societies with more income inequality have a higher incidence of drug use than other societies: Societies with more income inequality have a higher high school drop out rate than … Continue reading
“It is not just more of the same education that is needed” says the OECD, “the nature of the skills in demand is changing too.” The author adds: “The steepest decline in the demand for skills has recently occurred in routine cognitive task input, involving mental tasks that are well described by deductive or inductive rules… … Continue reading