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Labour and skills shortages are a major concern in the agro-food sector across OECD countries. This challenge is compounded by the relatively small, and declining, contribution of agriculture to GDP, and the negative public perception of the sector with relatively low wages and limited career prospects. This paper reviews policies that have the potential to address labour and skills shortages in the agro-food sector including labour market, education and training, social protection policies, immigration, as well as agricultural specific policies. Many of the policy levers used to address the agro-food labour challenge lie outside the sector and involve finding the right policy mix that tends to be country specific. Furthermore, some issues can be addressed by closer public and private collaboration such as improving working conditions, increasing investment in agricultural education and training of young entrants to the sector. Greater attention also needs to be given to improving the image of agriculture as a career choice, promoting a more diverse workforce, improving the alignment of skills to the needs of the sector, promoting continuous learning, and strengthening national advisory services.

Iceland has high living standards, low poverty, high inclusiveness and one of the most sustainable pension systems. It is the most highly unionised country in the OECD and, in the past, successful social pacts have protected the lowest paid workers during crises, and on occasion helped fight inflation. Nevertheless, Iceland experiences recurrent bursts of social tensions and labour unrest that often result in large wage awards, particularly in times of economic boom. Iceland is prone to accentuated economic cycles, and the pro-cyclical nature of collective bargaining aggravates these harmful dynamics.
Social partners often have disagreements over what has been agreed in the past and they can have differing views on the state of the economy. Trust among the social partners has been undermined and wage co-ordination is low. There is a large number of unions, many of them very small, and wage demands are often not consistent with macroeconomic stability. Labour unrest frequently originates in the public sector as wages lag behind the private sector.
Fostering trust and increasing wage co-ordination would make collective bargaining more effective and help sustain the benefits of the system for future generations. A technical committee should be established to provide reliable and impartial information to wage negotiators. Wage negotiations could start with “wage guidelines” issued by the major labour and employer confederations. State mediator should have greater powers in order to improve wage co-ordination and support the “wage guidelines”.
This working paper relates to the 2017 OECD Economic Survey of Iceland (http://www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-iceland.htm).

The Turkish economy grew strongly over the past two decades and created many jobs. However, given its young and growing workforce, Türkiye needs to ramp up efforts to achieve high-quality formal job creation. A sizeable share of the workforce, mostly female workers, does not actively participate in the labour market. While informality has decreased significantly, it is still widespread and entrenches productivity differences across firms. Rigid labour market rules, particularly the high severance pay but also minimum wages, impede formal job creation. More flexible labour markets should be part of a comprehensive reform programme that shifts job loss protection to a broader-based unemployment insurance scheme, supported by well-designed activation policies. While educational attainment has risen impressively, a growing number of vacancies, significant skill mismatches and a low level of adult skills highlight the need to address the quality of education and to improve on the matching of talent to jobs.

Resource efficiency and circular economy policies aim at reducing resource intensity and use throughout the economy, thereby decreasing environmental impacts. Besides the environmental benefits expected from these policies, potential employment benefits are often emphasised, which would follow the anticipated structural changes in the economy from material-intensive to more labour-intensive activities. However, the size of the employment effect is still unclear and difficult to quantify. To date, the quantitative literature on the employment impacts of the circular economy is still scarce. This study is the first of its kind to review the available studies on this increasingly important policy issue.

This paper provides an overview of labour market resilience in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008-09 and the role played by macroeconomic and structural policies. The OECD unemployment rate has returned to close to its pre-crisis level, but the unemployment cost of the Great Recession has nonetheless been very large and long-lasting in many countries. Moreover, as the recovery in output has been weak relative to the recovery in employment, labour productivity and wage growth remain low. Labour market resilience depends crucially on macroeconomic and labour market policy settings. Macroeconomic policies are highly effective in limiting employment declines during economic downturns and preventing that cyclical increases in unemployment become structural. Spending on active labour market policies needs to respond strongly to cyclical increases in unemployment to promote a quick return to work in the recovery and preserve the mutual-obligations ethos of activation regimes. Overly strict employment protection for regular workers reduces resilience by promoting the use of temporary contracts and slowing job creation in the recovery. Co-ordinated collective bargaining systems can promote resilience by facilitating wage and working-time adjustments.