Rejuvenating Greece's labour market to generate more and higher-quality jobs

Greece's labour market entered the COVID-19 shock following several years of sustained employment growth and with wages picking up. Unemployment remained high and employment rates were low, especially among women, the young and older workers. The shock led to a sharp fall in labour force activi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bulman, Tim
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Paris OECD Publishing 2020
Series:OECD Economics Department Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: OECD Books and Papers - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 02428nma a2200241 u 4500
001 EB002074996
003 EBX01000000000000001215086
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 220928 ||| eng
100 1 |a Bulman, Tim 
245 0 0 |a Rejuvenating Greece's labour market to generate more and higher-quality jobs  |h Elektronische Ressource  |c Tim, Bulman 
260 |a Paris  |b OECD Publishing  |c 2020 
300 |a 62 p 
653 |a Economics 
653 |a Greece 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b OECD  |a OECD Books and Papers 
490 0 |a OECD Economics Department Working Papers 
028 5 0 |a 10.1787/8ea5033a-en 
856 4 0 |a oecd-ilibrary.org  |u https://doi.org/10.1787/8ea5033a-en  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a Greece's labour market entered the COVID-19 shock following several years of sustained employment growth and with wages picking up. Unemployment remained high and employment rates were low, especially among women, the young and older workers. The shock led to a sharp fall in labour force activity and has stalled new hiring. The improved social protection and temporary support measures have helped to support households' incomes and protect jobs during the COVID-19 crisis. However, high tax and social security contribution rates, together with little in-work support for the low-paid, continue abetting high structural informality. This heightens insecurity - by excluding many workers from activation policies or social and employment protection - and weakens productivity. Boosting the capacity of employment services and activation policies would support the recovery from the COVID-19 shock, in addition to durably improving employment prospects especially of long-term unemployed. Giving workplaces further flexibility to adapt collective agreements to specific circumstances would help align wage growth with productivity developments and help businesses to weather the COVID-19 shock. Building on the population's solid education levels by equipping workers with the skills needed by the labour market can support employment and incomes. This will require a substantial boost to professional education and training at all levels and ages. This chapter applies the 2018 OECD Jobs Strategy to Greece to identify reforms that can help to overcome the COVID-19 crisis and create a virtuous cycle between productivity, job creation, and well-being