What worked well in social protection during the COVID-19 pandemic?

This Working Paper looks at some of the shorter and longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on labour markets across OECD countries. It examines how job retention schemes, unemployment benefits, sickness and disability-related benefits and their prompt expansion have succeeded in protecting people’s jobs and incomes; and how successful countries were in preventing structural increases in labour market inactivity, as indicated by the development of disability benefit receipt. The paper demonstrates and confirms the overall significant success in the labour market response to the COVID-19 pandemic across OECD countries. This contributes to explaining why the COVID-19 pandemic has disappeared from the labour market discussion much faster than initially expected, despite an unprecedented shock to labour markets and a sharp decline in working hours at the outset of the crisis. Preventing sustained long-term unemployment and long-term sickness absence has secured jobs and incomes and prevented inactivity .