The OECD Employment Outlook provides an annual assessment of key labour market developments and prospects in OECD Member countries. Each edition also includes several chapters that focus on specific aspects of the functioning of labour markets and the implications for policies to promote more and better jobs. The 2026 edition of the OECD Employment Outlook examines regional disparities in employment, unemployment and disposable incomes and their dynamics, as well as the policy challenges to address them. The Outlook also assesses recent labour market and wage developments and investigates changes in how skills translate into pay and job prospects, as well as aspects of labour regulation such as employment protection legislation and non-compete agreements.
The OECD Employment Outlook 2026 is the joint work of staff of the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS). Parts of the Outlook are the result of collaborations with the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE) – the Editorial and Chapters 2 and 3 – and the Economics Department (ECO) – Chapter 5. Chapter 2 draws on the outputs of different streams of OECD work on geographic inequalities in labour market outcomes, disposable household incomes, and the accessibility of essential services that were co-funded by the European Commission under the grant agreements INEQ III to INEQ VI. The Outlook has also greatly benefitted from comments from other OECD Directorates and contributions from national government delegates and national institutions. However, the Outlook’s assessment of the labour market prospects for each country does not necessarily correspond to those made by the national authorities and institutions concerned.
This report was edited by Andrea Bassanini. The authors of individual chapters were Alexandre Georgieff and Sébastien Martin (Chapter 1); Sebastian Königs, Sérgio Pinto, Javier Terrero-Dávila and Juan Andrés Álvarez Mejía (Chapter 2); César Barreto, Alexander Hijzen, Carlo Menon and Antonela Miho (Chapter 3); Julie Lassebie, Patricia Navarro-Palau and Roland Tusz (Chapter 4); Dan Andrews, Andrea Garnero and Sara Holttinen (Chapter 5) and Alexandre Georgieff (Chapter 6).
Stéphane Carcillo (Head of the Jobs and Income Division of ELS) provided detailed comments on all the chapters. The report also benefitted from comments from Stefano Scarpetta (OECD Chief Economist), Mark Pearson (Acting Director of ELS), Nadim Ahmad (Deputy Director of CFE), Åsa Johansson (Director of the Policy Studies Branch of ECO), Filiz Ünsal (Deputy Director of the Policy Studies Branch of ECO), Glenda Quintini (Head of the Skills and Future Readiness Division of ELS) and Theodora Xenogiani (Head of the Employability Division of ELS), as well as Jeff Israely, Lukas Kleine‑Rueschkamp and Anne Lauringson.
The infographic is based on contributions from Alastair Wood. Pascal Marianna was responsible for the statistical annex. Statistical support was provided by Sébastien Martin, António Melo, Agnès Puymoyen and Dana Blumin. Editorial assistance was provided by Hagai Glebocki, Lucy Hulett and Marc Simion.
Chapter 2 benefited from support by the European Commission’s DG Employment – in particular Elva Bova, Katarina Jaksic and Jakub Caisl – and various national experts who provided statistical indicators and results and shared their feedback and advice. These include the experts who supported the work with the administrative income microdata – notably the team of the Austrian Micro Data Center (Statistik Austria), Lien Tam Co (Statbel), Xuelin Zhang (Statistics Canada), Kertu Mits and Rauno Temmer (Statistics Estonia), Esa Karonen (University of Turku, Finland), George Planiteros (Ministry of Labour and Social Security of Greece), Nikolay Flaa (Statistics Norway), Ignacio Moral Arce and María Joaquina Barroso (Spanish Institute of Fiscal Studies), and Johan Lindberg (Statistics Sweden) – and the experts who extracted the indicators of regional labour market outcomes and household incomes – including Dean Adams, Michael Bassett, Janelle McFarlane, and Thomas Wherry (Australian Bureau for Statistics), Andreas Mitterlehner (Statistik Austria), Táňa Dvornáková (Czech Statistical Office), Juan Carlos Zamora (National Institute of Statistics and Census of Costa Rica), Uwe Pedersen (Statistics Denmark), Veli‑Matti Törmälehto (Statistics Finland), Jean Dupin (INSEE), Eva O’Regan (Central Statistics Office of Ireland), the Statistics Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Kristina Aitmanė and Kristina Sakalauskaitė (Statistics Lithuania), Darja Behtere (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia), Lene Sandvik (Statistics Norway), Fergus Cleveland, Hanna Vu and Tod Wright (New Zealand Treasury), Leszek Kozłowski (Statistics Poland), Stanka Intihar (Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia), and Johan Lindberg (Statistics Sweden).
Chapter 3 builds on contributions of national experts from the OECD LinkEED 2.0 network. These include Patrick Bennett (University of Liverpool and IZA), Filipe Bento Caires (European University Institute), Dogan Gülümser (RF Berlin), Marie Kjeldsen (Aarhus University), Benjamin Lochner (FAU, IAB and IZA), Stefano Lombardi (VATT, IFAU, IZA and UCLS), Claudio Luccioletti (Bank of Italy), Tahsin Mehdi (StatCan), Jordy Meekes (Leiden University and IZA), Balázs Muraközy (University of Liverpool), Marco G. Palladino (Banque de France), Kjell Salvanes (NHH and IZA), Oskar Nordström Skans (Uppsala University, UCLS, IZA and IFAU), Rune Vejlin (Aarhus University and IZA), and Lennart Ziegler (University of Vienna). Bradley Setzler (Penn State) provided academic guidance. The chapter is also part of the OECD Transforming Places project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of the work by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to create opportunities and improve outcomes across the United Kingdom.
The surveys that form the basis of Chapter 5 were developed in collaboration with Tito Boeri, Federica Meluzzi and Paola Monti from Bocconi University, as well as Sindri Engilbertsson from the University of Amsterdam. The project received financial support from Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy), as well as from the governments of Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, the European Research Council (ERC-MARKINDOWN, Grant Agreement No. 101097687) and the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) PRIN 2022 programme (Project No. 2022JYY7SA). Ori Schwartz and Ania Thiemann of the OECD Competition Division also provided valuable input.