Concerns over job loss in high greenhouse gas (GHG) emission industries risk undermining public support for climate change mitigation policies, OECD Employment outlook 2024 warns.
- According to the report, the net-zero transition will not only create new job opportunities in low-emission activities but also increase the risk of job loss in high-emission activities.
- Stefano Scarpetta, Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, OECD estimates that more than 25 per cent of existing jobs will be strongly affected by net-zero policies, in both positive and negative ways.
- The transition will impact jobs well beyond the energy sector, touching many professions, from bus drivers to construction workers to farmers.
He says policy makers should see this broader employment assessment as an opportunity to raise awareness and impart agency across the wide portion of the workforce that has a direct stake and role to play in achieving climate-mitigation objectives.
“Developing effective policies to support displaced workers is therefore not only crucial to alleviate the consequences of job displacement but also to ensure that concerns about job loss do not result in a backlash stalling progress towards net-zero emissions,” he says.
“Policy makers have various tools at their disposal that can help facilitate job transitions, foster job opportunities, and support displaced workers,” notes the report.
“Beyond well-designed out-of-work income-support schemes, early intervention measures targeted at workers at risk of dismissal can limit the incidence and consequences of job displacement.”
According to the OECD Employment outlook 2024, effective training programmes are needed to enable transitions out of emission-intensive occupations or into green-driven occupations and to upskill existing workers faced with new tasks, as businesses move towards sustainable production processes.
Targeted in-work support approaches, such as wage insurance schemes, may also be a complementary tool when workers are offered lower wages than before displacement.
The latest edition of the OECD Employment Outlook examines the characteristics of the jobs that are likely to thrive because of the transition (“green-driven jobs”), including their attractiveness in terms of job quality, and compares them to jobs in high-emission industries that tend to shrink.
The cost of job displacement in these latter industries is assessed along with the trajectories of workers out of them towards new opportunities, and the labour market policies that can facilitate job reallocation. Particular attention is devoted to upskilling and reskilling strategies to facilitate workers’ transition into fast-growing, green-driven occupations.
The distributive impacts of climate-change mitigation policies are also examined, with a focus on carbon pricing and options to redistribute its tax revenue to those most impacted.
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