By Date

This report provides a cross-country review of waste, materials management and circular economy policies in selected OECD countries, drawing on OECD’s Environmental Performance Reviews during the period 2010-17. It presents the main achievements in the countries reviewed, along with common trends and policy challenges, and provides insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of waste, materials management and circular economy policy frameworks. As the selected reviews were published over a seven-year period, information for some countries may be more recent than for others. Nevertheless, the policy recommendations emerging from the reviews may provide useful lessons for other OECD countries and partner economies.

This report documents how the ongoing digital transformation is affecting people’s lives across the 11 key dimensions that make up the How’s Life? Well-being Framework (Income and wealth, Jobs and earnings, Housing, Health status, Education and skills, Work-life balance, Civic engagement and governance, Social connections, Environmental quality, Personal security, and Subjective well-being). A summary of existing studies highlights 39 key impacts of the digital transformation on people’s well-being. The review shows that these impacts can be positive as digital technologies expand the boundaries of information availability and enhance human productivity, but can also imply risks for people’s well-being, ranging from cyber-bullying to the emergence of disinformation or cyber-hacking. In sum, making digitalisation work for people’s well-being would require building equal digital opportunities, widespread digital literacy and strong digital security. Continued research and efforts in improving statistical frameworks will be needed to expand our knowledge on the many topics covered in this report.

This new OECD report on the ocean economy emphasises the growing importance of science and technologies in improving the sustainable economic development of our seas and ocean. Marine ecosystems sit at the heart of many of the world’s global challenges: food, medicines, new sources of clean energy, climate regulation, job creation and inclusive growth. But we need to safeguard and improve the health of marine ecosystems to support our ever-growing use of marine resources. Innovation in science and technology will play a key role in reconciling these two objectives. This report identifies three priority areas for action based on a number of in-depth case studies: 1) approaches that produce win-win outcomes for ocean business and the ocean environment across a range of marine and maritime applications; 2) the creation of ocean-economy innovation networks; and 3) new pioneering initiatives to improve measurement of the ocean economy.

This report presents global projections of materials use and their environmental consequences, providing a quantitative outlook to 2060 at the global, sectoral and regional levels for 61 different materials (biomass resources, fossil fuels, metals and non-metallic minerals). It explains the economic drivers determining the decoupling of economic growth and materials use, and assesses how the projected shifts in sectoral and regional economic activity influence the use of different materials. The projections include both primary and secondary materials, which provides a deeper understanding of what drives the synergies and trade-offs between extraction and recycling.The report projects a doubling of global primary materials use between today and 2060. Population and converging per capita income growth drive the growth in materials use. However, structural change, especially in non-OECD countries, and technology improvements partially dampen that growth. Metals and non-metallic minerals are projected to grow more rapidly than other types of materials.

The Korean labour migration system has expanded since the mid-2000s, primarily in the admission of temporary foreign workers for less skilled jobs. Its temporary labour programme, addressed largely at SMEs in manufacturing and based on bilateral agreements with origin countries, has become the largest such programme in the OECD.  Structural changes in the labour force, with a rapidly shrinking and highly educated youth population, keep the underlying demand for this programme strong. Yet skills levels of workers are increasing, and there is interest in increasing Korea's share in global talent mobility, including international students and innovative entrepreneurs. This book addresses the question of how to ensure that international recruitment can help meet urgent needs in the labour market which cannot be met locally, and how the temporary labour migration programme - and other migration streams - can evolve to ensure that Korea meets its policy objectives. This review first examines the characteristics of the Korean labour market and main challenges where labour migration can help address demand. Following a discussion of various programmes and procedures, the review assesses how labour migration is playing a role in different sectors and how programme governance could be improved. It then explores the channels for high-skilled migrants and how these could be improved in light of international experience.

Better skills policies help build economic resilience, boost employment and reinforce social cohesion. The OECD Skills Strategy provides countries with a framework to analyse their skills strengths and challenges. Each OECD Skills Strategy diagnostic report reflects a set of skills challenges identified by broad stakeholder engagement and OECD comparative evidence while offering concrete examples of how other countries have tackled similar skills challenges. These reports tackle questions such as: How can countries maximise their skills potential? How can they improve their performance in developing relevant skills, activating skills supply and using skills effectively? What is the benefit of a whole-of-government approach to skills? How can governments build stronger partnerships with employers, trade unions, teachers and students to deliver better skills outcomes? OECD Skills Strategy diagnostic reports provide new insights into these questions and help identify the core components of successful skills strategies. This report is part of the OECD’s ongoing work on building effective national and local skills strategies.

The Sami have lived for time immemorial in an area that today extends across the Kola Peninsula in Russia, northern Finland, northern Norway's coast and inland, and the northern half of Sweden. The Sami play an important role in these northern economies thanks to their use of land, their involvement in reindeer husbandry, agriculture/farming and food production, and connection with the region’s tourism industry. However, in Sweden, as in the other states where the Sami live, the connections with regional development are often inconsistent and weak, and could do more to support the preservation and promotion of Sami culture and create new employment and business opportunities. This study, together with the OECD’s broader thematic work on this topic, provides actionable recommendations on how to better include the Sami and other Indigenous Peoples in regional development strategies, learning from and incorporating their own perspectives on sustainable development in the process.