Policymakers across the OECD are faced with the twin challenges of boosting productivity growth, while ensuring that growth delivers improved living standards and spreads the benefits of increased prosperity fairly. This is a vital but not an easy task. Actions originating at any single governance level or policy area will not be sufficient. A whole-of-government approach is needed. While strategies and plans can be developed at the national and regional levels, it is at the level of local communities that the “rubber hits the road”. The local level is where programme delivery actually happens, trade-offs and complementarities become most evident, and actions can be joined-up to deliver effective results.

This second edition of the Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme’s biennial series, Job Creation and Local Economic Development draws on projects across LEED’s programme of work to offer practical and concrete guidance to policy makers and practitioners. In particular, it draws from the projects on “Engaging employers in skills development”; “Tackling skills mismatch and fostering skills utilisation”; “Local job creation”; “Boosting local entrepreneurship and enterprise creation”; “Nurturing inclusive entrepreneurship”; and “Injecting local flexibility in education and training systems”.

Following an introductory chapter, this publication consists of two main parts. contains -, the five thematic chapters of the publication. consists of 36 country profiles as well as an overview of the methodology for the profiles. These profiles present a variety of local indicators, including new data on skills supply and demand at the sub-regional level. Data are presented for each member of the LEED Directing Committee and other OECD countries for which relevant data were available.As of June 2016. More detailed information about the methodology for the country profiles is available in the overview of the country profiles.

Many OECD countries are seeing widening gaps in the geographic distribution of skills and jobs. By supporting quality job creation from within and ensuring that all residents can benefit from and contribute to growth, local development is a key tool for addressing this problem. This edition of Job Creation and Local Economic Development looks at how skills and quality jobs are distributed at the local level, and what national and local actors can do to improve the local implementation of vocational education and training (VET) and SME and entrepreneurship policies in order to boost job creation and strengthen local economies.

This chapter summarises the key messages from this publication by taking stock of how local areas are performing in the marketplace for skills and jobs; discussing how to improve the local delivery of vocational education and training, including apprenticeships; and examining how to tailor entrepreneurship and SME policies to specific places and populations. In particular, this chapter shows that with the right conditions in place, working locally can be a key component of promoting inclusive growth nationally. Additionally, it provides a snapshot of recent reforms across OECD countries related to empowering regional and local actors; building local resilience; taking innovative approaches to designing, delivering and financing local services; and engaging employers in employment and skills policies.