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This policy brief provides an update on job retention policies in a sample of 20 countries representing the main world regions as well as the diverse types of job retention schemes, in particular short-time work, furlough and wage subsidy schemes as they have been implemented in response to the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic. We show the diversity of these policies as well as the available information about their (re-)design as the pandemic evolved up to the most recent period. The policy brief raises main issues regarding the implementation and adaptation of job retention policies and illustrated this with four case studies.

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Economic and social disruptions caused by the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 crisis have particularly affected younger people, and therefore policy should respond with measures, programmes and initiatives targeted at this population group. Next to broader labour market and economic measures, which ultimately also benefit younger people, youth-targeted measures are needed given the specific impacts of the pandemic and resulting challenges. Against this background, this policy brief gives an overview on actual policy responses in the area of youth employment during the COVID-19 crisis in 20 selected countries. If such measures are implemented, they share the common goals of reducing the negative impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on younger workers and avoiding long-term scarring effects. However, the precise nature, extent and scope of such measures substantially differ across countries. Given the fragility and large uncertainty of economic recovery that is still present in early 2022, broader policy support continues to be needed, including specific policy measures targeting youth.

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The paper addresses an often neglected question in labour market research: to which extent do outcomes aggregated on the national level disguise occupational diversity in employment conditions? In particular, how and why do occupational groups differ with regard to the incidence of non-standard employment? To explore these questions, the paper derives a detailed occupational scheme from the literature, capturing the variety of labour market outcomes within countries. In a second step, the scheme is theoretically linked to the topic of non-standard work. It is argued that different degrees of skill specificity across occupational groups produce diverging incentives for flexible and long-term employment, respectively. This leads to the expectation of (some) service-sector occupations showing stronger tendencies towards non-standard employment than those in the industrial sector. Based on European and German micro data, the categorisation is used to decompose various labour market indicators. The results clearly demonstrate the unequal incidence of non-standard employment along the lines of the suggested categorisation. Moreover, the longitudinal perspective suggests that traditionally functioning occupational groups will be crowded out by more destandardised ones.

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Different models of protection against labor market risks are associated with diverging models of economic performance. Historically established institutional complementarities between labor market regulation, unemployment protection, and vocational training tend to mirror specific national models of economic production. For example, the German dual apprenticeship system is a core feature of the corporatist model of 'diversified quality production'. This, in turn, is supported via skills-protecting, earnings-related unemployment insurance, skills-oriented active labor market policies and strong dismissal protection so that long-term productive employment relationships become viable. The paper explores the connection between structural change and the development of skill creation in the German case with a particular focus on the difference between manufacturing and services as well as between different types of service sub-sectors. The paper takes manufacturing, a sector dominated by standard employment, as a reference point but mainly addresses different segments of the service economy: traditional ones (banking and insurance), new high-skill sectors (IT and the 'creative economy') and growing areas of low-skill services (hotels and restaurants, cleaning). We find that dynamic job creation in these segments of the service sector was possible due to a less regulated institutional environment.

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The share of non-standard jobs in total employment has increased in Germany over recent decades. Research tends to attribute this in particular to labour market re-forms and socio-economic change. However, it becomes clear upon closer inspection that macro trends alone cannot provide satisfactory explanations. A striking yet rarely acknowledged aspect of the development in Germany is a large occupational heterogeneity, which is true for both current working conditions and trajectories of change. A process of asymmetric change has been witnessed in recent years, increasing the gap between occupational groups. Given this process, it seems increasingly questionable to aggregate data at the national level. Therefore, this paper analyses the role of different types of non-standard employment across occupations in Germany, explaining variation between occupations with reference to institutional conditions, industrial relations and patterns of labour supply and demand, in particular skill requirements.

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Active labour market policies (ALMPs), which include measures such as job search assistance, training programmes, wage subsidies or public employment schemes, are a key element in the portfolio of policy tools that are designed to bring unemployed workers back into employment. Increasing their scope and intensity is therefore suggested particularly in economic downturns. The [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 crisis is no exception to this rule. However, the COVID-19 crisis has particular features that could make the adequate use of ALMPs different than in previous recessions. For example, due to containment measures especially in the early phase of the pandemic, many courses and programmes could not continue as planned, and new courses could not start. Such a temporary halt would imply that at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, and despite the imminent and actual increase in unemployment figures, ALMPs could have been used rather differently and also to a smaller extent than in previous recessions. This policy brief tracks the sequential logic of labour market policies across a sample of countries from all world regions.

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