Helping Workers to Navigate in "Globalized" Labour Markets
June 1, 2005
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD Observer, "Helping Workers to Navigate in
'Globalized' Labour Markets," OECD Policy Brief, OECD, Paris, June 2005.
Executive Summary
This policy brief reviews recent OECD analysis of the role of rising international economic integration in fuelling insecurity about employment and earnings for OECD workers, as well as what is known about best-practice policy responses. Trade-related job losses are best viewed as being part of a broader policy challenge, that of adjusting successfully to structural economic change. A recent OECD study emphasises that the drivers of structural economic change include not just international trade and investment, but also factors such as technological and demographic changes. Meeting this broader challenge requires policy responses that extend far beyond the labour-market programmes emphasised in this Policy Brief. Nonetheless, labour-market and social safety-net policies play a critical role.
